J LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.* 



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LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

EXAMINED 



I N 



EIGHT LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF 
OXFORD, IN THE YEAR MDCCCLVIIL, 

ON 



B T 

HENRY LONGUEVILLE 3IANSEL, B. D, 

II 

READER IN MORAL AND METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY AT MAGDALEN COLLEGE; 
TUTOR AND LATE FELLOW OP ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE. 



FIRST AMERICAN, PROM THE THIRD LONDON, EDITION. 
WITH THE NOTES TRANSLATED. 

BOSTON: 

Q O U L D A N L> LINCOLN, 

59 WASHINGTON STREET. 

NEW YORK: SHELDON AND COMPANY. 

CINCINNATI: GEORGE S. BLANCHARD. 

1859. 



J&Lsi 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by 

GOULD AND LINCOLN, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 



ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED 
n Y W . F. DRAPER, ANDOVER, MASS. 



THE OBJECTIONS MADE TO FAITH ARE BY NO MEANS AN 
EFFECT OF KNOWLEDGE, BUT PROCEED RATHER FROM 
IGNORANCE OF WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS. 

BISHOP BERKELEY. 



NO DIFFICULTY EMERGES IN THEOLOGY, WHICH HAD NOT 
PREVIOUSLY EMERGED IN PHILOSOPHY. 

SIB W. HAMILTON. 



EXTRACT 



THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT 



REV. JOHN BAMPTON, 



CANON OF SALISBURY. 



. ..." I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the Chancellor, 
Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford for ever, to have and 
to hold all and singular the said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the 
intents and purposes hereinafter mentioned; that is to say, I will and 
appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford for the time 
being shall take and receive all the rents, issues, and profits thereof, and 
(after all taxes, reparations, and necessary deductions made) that he pay 
all the remainder to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, 
to be established for ever in the said University, and to be performed in 
the manner following : 

" I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in Easter Term, a 

Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads of Colleges only, and by no 

others, in the room adjoining to the Printing-House, between the hours 

of ten in the morning and two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity 

Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary's in Oxford, between 

1* 



VI EXTRACT FROM CANON BAMPTON'S WILL. 

the commencement of the last month in Lent Term, and the end of the 
third week in Act Term. 

" Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons 
shall he preached upon either of the following Subjects — to confirm and 
establish the Christian Faith, and to confute all heretics and schismatics 
— upon the divine authority of the holy Scriptures — upon the authority 
of the writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and practice of 
the primitive Church — upon the Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ — upon the Divinity of the Holy Ghost — upon the Articles of the 
Christian Faith, as comprehended in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. 

" Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons 
shall be always printed, within two months after they are preached, and 
one copy shall be given to the Chancellor of the University, and one copy 
to the Head of every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city of 
Oxford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library; and the 
expense of printing them shall be paid out of the revenue of the Land or 
Estates given for establishing the Divinity Lecture Sermons; and the 
Preacher shall not be paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are 
printed. 

" Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qualified to preach 
the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath taken the degree of Master 
of Arts at least, in one of the two Universities of Oxford or Cambridge; 
and that the same person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Ser- 
mons twice." 



PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT 

TO 

THE AMERICAN EDITION. 



The work, here offered to the American public, has been received with 
the most marked attention in England, and has already reached a third 
edition, though but few months have elapsed since the issue of the first. 
It is believed that its great merits will command for it a like attention 
wherever it is known; the rare learning and metaphysical ability with 
which it discusses problems, no less profound in their philosophical 
nature than practical in their religious applications; the devout rever- 
ence for the authority of the Bible, and the truly Christian spirit with 
which it is imbued, must gain for it a cherished place in the minds and 
hearts of all who wish well to a sound philosophy, and a pure, and we 
may add, a real, Christianity. In its more immediate aspect, it is emi- 
nently a work for the present times; so closely is it connected with the 
higher thinking of the present generation, and so boldly and triumphantly 
does it carry the Christian argument through the entire course of recent, 
and especially German, speculation. But rightly viewed, these Lectures of 
Mr. Mansel have a far wider scope than this ; for, in unfolding his great 
theme, the author aims to lay the foundations of a sound religious philos- 
ophy in the laws of the human mind, and in the general conditions to 
which it is thereby necessarily subject in the attainment of all truth and 
knowledge; his work therefore belongs, in its principles and applications, 



VIII ADVERTISEMENT. 

to all periods of human inquiry, and is thus invested with a universal 
interest and a permanent value. 

But without enlarging upon the general merits of this work, the Pub- 
lishers have only to mention the single change of any importance, which 
it has undergone in the present reprint. This change is the translation in 
the author's learned Notes — a most valuable portion of his work — of 
the numerous passages from foreign writers, Greek, Latin, French, and 
German, which in the English edition appear in the original languages. 
It has been thought best to translate these passages, in order to bring 
them within the reach of all general readers; and it is hoped that this 
proceeding will be regarded by scholars with indulgence at least, if not 
with entire approval. 

The translations have been made by Prof. John L. Lincoln, of 
Brown University, whose reputation as a scholar is deemed by the Pub- 
lishers a sufficient guaranty for the execution of the work. It has been 
the translator's endeavor to reproduce the original with as much fidelity 
as possible; and to make only such departures, even in the form of the 
thought, as the English idiom seemed to require. The difficulties belong- 
ing to the task of translating isolated passages from so many and so 
different writers, will doubtless be best understood by those who are 
most familiar with the languages in which they are written, and with the 
abstruse subjects which they discuss. 

An Index of the Authors, quoted in the work, has been also pre- 
pared for the American edition, which will be of great service to readers, 
and will indicate the wide and various range of Mr. Mansel's studies. 

Boston, April 20, 1859. 



PREFACE 



TO 



THE THIRD EDITION. 



The various Criticisms to which these Lectures have been 
subjected since the publication of the last Edition, seem to call 
for a few explanatory remarks on the positions principally con- 
troverted. Such remarks may, it is hoped, contribute to the 
clearer perception of the argument in places where it has 
been misunderstood, and are also required in order to justify 
the republication, with little more than a few verbal alterations, 
of the entire work in its original form. 

On the whole, I have no reason to complain of my Critics. 
With one or two exceptions, the tone of their observations has 
been candid, liberal, and intelligent, and in some instances 
more favorable than I could have ventured to expect. An 
argument so abstruse, and in some respects so controversial, 
must almost inevitably call forth a considerable amount of 
opposition ; and such criticism is at least useful in stimulating 
further inquiry, and in pointing out to an author those among 



10 PREFACE. 

his statements which appear most to require explanation or 
defence. If it has not done more than this, it is because the 
original argument was not put forth without much previous 
consideration, nor without anticipation of many of the objec- 
tions to which it was likely to be exposed. 

At present, I must confine myself to those explanations 
which appear to be necessary to the right appreciation of the 
main purposes of the work, on the supposition that its funda- 
mental principles may be admitted as tenable. To reargue the 
whole question on first principles, or to reply minutely to the 
criticisms on subordinate details, would require a larger space 
than can be allotted to a preface, and would be at least prema- 
ture at the present stage of the controversy, while the work 
has in all probability not yet completed the entire course of 
criticism which a new book is destined to undergo if it succeeds 
in attracting any amount of public attention. 

In the first place, it may be desirable to obviate some mis- 
apprehensions concerning the design of the work as a whole. 
It should be remembered, that to answer the objections which 
have been urged against Christianity, or against any religion, 
is not to prove the religion to be true. It only clears the 
ground for the production of the proper evidences. It shows, 
so far as it is successful, that the religion may he true, notwith- 
standing the objections by which it has been assailed ; but it 



PREFACE. 11 

cannot by itself convert this admission into a positive belief. It 
only calls for an impartial hearing of the other grounds on 
which the question must be decided. 

When, therefore, a critic objects to the present argument, 
that " the presence of contradictions is no proof of the truth of 
a system ; " that " we are not entitled to erect on this ethereal 
basis a superstructure of theological doctrine, only because it, 
too, possesses the same self-contradictions ; " that " the argument 
places all religions and philosophies on precisely the same 
level;" — he merely charges it with accomplishing the very 
purpose which it was intended to accomplish. So far as cer- 
tain difficulties are inherent in the constitution of the human 
mind itself, they must of necessity occupy the same position 
with respect to all religions, — the false no less than the true. It 
is sufficient if it can be shown that they have not, as is too often 
supposed, any peculiar force against Christianity alone. No 
sane man dreams of maintaining that a religion is true because 
of the difficulties which it involves : the utmost that can rea- 
sonably be maintained is that it may be true in spite of them. 
Such an argument of course requires, as its supplement, a 
further consideration of the direct evidences of Christianity; 
and this requirement is pointed out in the concluding Lecture. 
But it formed no part of my design to exhibit in detail the 
evidences themselves ; — a task which the many excellent 
works already existing on that subject would have rendered 



12 PREFACE. 

wholly unnecessary, even if it could have been satisfactorily 
accomplished within the limits of the single Lecture which 
alone could have been given to it. 

But granting for the present the main position of these Lec- 
tures, namely, that the human mind inevitably and by virtue 
of its essential constitution, finds itself involved in self-contra- 
dictions whenever it ventures on certain courses of speculation ; 
it may be asked, in the next place, what conclusion does this 
admission warrant, as regards the respective positions of Faith 
and Reason in determining the religious convictions of men. 
These Lectures have been charged with condemning, under 
the name of Dogmatism, all Dogmatic Theology; with cen- 
suring fci the exercise of Reason in defence and illustration of 
the truths of Revelation ; " with including " schoolmen and 
saints and infidels alike " in one and the same condemnation. 
Such sweeping assertions are surely not warranted by anything 
that is maintained in the Lectures themselves. Dogmatism 
and Rationalism are contrasted with each other, not as em- 
ploying reason for opposite purposes, but as employing it in 
extremes. The contrast was naturally suggested by the his- 
torical connection between the Wolfian philosophy and the 
Kantian, the one as the stronghold of Dogmatism, the other of 
Rationalism. The religious philosophy of Wolf and his fol- 
lowers, whose system, and not that of either " schoolmen or 
saints," is cited as the chief specimen of Dogmatism, was 



PREFACE. 13 

founded on the assumption that philosophical proofs of theolog- 
ical doctrines were absolutely necessary in all cases. " He 
maintained," says a writer quoted in the Notes, " that philos- 
ophy was indispensable to theology, and that, together with 
biblical proofs, a mathematical or strictly demonstrative dog- 
matical system, according to the principles of reason, was 
absolutely necessary." Dogmatism, as thus exemplified, is 
surely not the use of reason in theology, but its abuse. Unless 
a critic is prepared to accept, as legitimate reasoning, Canz's 
demonstration of the Trinity, cited at p. 232 of the present 
volume, or the more modern specimen of the same method 
noticed at p. 15, he must surely admit the conclusion which 
these instances were adduced to prove; namely, that the 
methods of the Dogmatist and the Rationalist are alike open to 
criticism, " in so far as they keep within or go beyond those 
limits of sound thought which the laws of man's mind, or the 
circumstances in which he is placed, have imposed upon him." 

All Dogmatic Theology is not Dogmatism, nor all use of 
Reason Rationalism, any more than all drinking is drunken- 
ness. The dogmatic or the rational method may be rightly or 
wrongly employed, and the question is to determine the limits 
of the legitimate or illegitimate use of each. It is expressly as 
extremes that the two systems are contrasted : each is described 
as leading to error in its exclusive employment, yet as being, in 
its utmost error, only a truth abused. If reason may not be 



14 PREFACE. 

used without restriction in the defence any more than in the 
refutation of religious doctrines; if there are any mysteries 
of revelation which it is our duty to believe, though we 
cannot demonstrate them from philosophical premises, — this 
is sufficient to show that the provinces of Faith and Reason 
are not coextensive. But to assert this is surely not to deny 
that the dogmatic method may be and has been rightly used 
within certain limits. The dogmatism which is condemned 
is not system, but the extravagance of system. If syste- 
matic completeness is made the end which the theologian is 
bound to pursue, at every cost; if whatever is left obscure 
and partial in revealed truth is, as a matter of necessity, to 
be cleared and completed by definitions and inferences, cer- 
tain or uncertain ; if the declarations of Scripture are in 
all cases to be treated as conclusions to be supported by 
philosophical premises, or as principles to be developed into 
philosophical conclusions, — then indeed Dogmatic Theology 
is in danger of degenerating into mere Dogmatism. But 
it is only the indiscriminate use of the method which is 
condemned, and that not simply as an employment of reason 
in religious questions, but as an employment beyond its just 
limits. And if, in citing instances of this misuse, it has 
been occasionally necessary to point out the errors of writers 
whose names are justly honored in the Church, and whose 
labors, as a whole, are entitled to the reverence and grati- 
tude of posterity, I wish distinctly to state, that the censure, 



PREFACE. 15 

such as it is, reaches only to the points directly indicated, 
by reference or quotation, and is not intended to apply further. 

What, then, is the practical lesson which these Lectures 
are designed to teach concerning the right use of reason in 
religious questions? and what are the just claims of a rea- 
sonable faith, as distinguished from a blind credulity? In 
the first place, it is obvious that, if there is any object 
whatever of which the human mind is unable to form a 
clear and distinct conception, the inability equally disquali- 
fies us for proving or disproving a given doctrine, in all 
cases in which such a conception is an indispensable condi- 
tion of the argument. If, for example, we can form no 
positive notion of the Nature of God as an Infinite Being, 
we are not entitled either to demonstrate the mystery of 
the Trinity as a necessary property of that Nature, or to 
reject it as necessarily inconsistent therewith. Such mys- 
teries clearly belong, not to Reason, but to Faith; and the 
'preliminary inquiry which distinguishes a reasonable from 
an unreasonable belief, must be directed, not to the premises 
by which the doctrine can be proved or disproved as rea- 
sonable or unreasonable, but to the nature of the authority 
on which it rests, as revealed or unrevealed. The brief 
summary of Christian Evidences contained in my conclud- 
ing Lecture, 1 and others which might be added to them, are 

i See below, p. 214. 



.16 PREFACE. 

surely sufficient to form an ample field for the use of Keason, 
even in regard to those mysteries which it cannot directly 
examine. If to submit to an authority which can stand the 
test of such investigations, and to believe it when it tells 
us of things which we are unable to investigate, — if this 
be censured as a blind credulity, it is a blindness which in 
these things is a better guide than the opposite quality so 
justly described by the philosopher as " the sharp-sightedness 
of little souls." 

In the second place, a caution is needed concerning the 
kind of evidence which reason is competent to furnish within 
the legitimate sphere of its employment. If we have not 
such a conception of the Divine Nature as is sufficient for 
the a 'priori demonstration of religious truth, our rational 
conviction in any particular case must be regarded, not as a 
certainty ', but as a 'probability. We must remember the Aris- 
totelian rule, to be content with such evidence as the nature 
of the object-matter allows. A single infallible criterion of 
all religious truth can be obtained only by the possession of 
a perfect Philosophy of the Infinite. If such a philosophy 
is unattainable ; if the infinite can only be apprehended under 
finite symbols, and the authority of those symbols tested by 
finite evidences, — there is always room for error, in conse- 
quence of the inadequacy of the conception to express com- 
pletely the nature of the object. In other words, we must 



PREFACE. 17 

admit that human reason, though not worthless, is at least 
fallible, in dealing with religious questions; and that the 
probability of error is always increased in proportion to the 
partial nature of the evidence with which it deals. Those 
who set up some one supreme criterion of religious truth, 
their " Christian consciousness," their (i religious intuitions," 
their "moral reason," or any other of the favorite idols of 
the subjective school of theologians, and who treat with 
contempt every kind of evidence which does riot harmonize 
with this, are especially liable to be led into error. They 
use the weight without the counterpoise, to the imminent 
peril of their mental equilibrium. This is the caution which 
it was the object of my concluding Lecture to enforce, prin- 
cipally by means of two practical rules ; namely, first, that 
the true evidence, for or against a religion, is not to be found 
in any single criterion, but in the result of many presump- 
tions examined and compared together; and, secondly, that 
in proportion to the weight of the counter-evidence in favor 
of a religion, is the probability that we may be mistaken in 
supposing a particular class of objections to have any real 
weight at all. 

These considerations are no less applicable to moral than 
to speculative reasonings. The moral faculty, though fur- 
nishing undoubtedly some of the most important elements 
for the solution of the religious problem, is no more entitled 

2* 



18 PREFACE. 

than any other single principle of the human mind to be 
accepted as a sole and sufficient criterion. It is true that to 
our sense of moral obligation we owe our primary concep- 
tion of God as a moral Governor; and it is also true that, 
were man left solely to a priori presumptions in forming 
his estimate of the nature and attributes of God, the moral 
sense, as being that one of all human faculties whose judg- 
ments are least dependent on experience, would furnish the 
principal, if not the only characteristics of his highest con- 
ception of God. But here, as elsewhere, the original pre- 
sumption is modified and corrected by subsequent experience. 
It is a fact which experience forces upon us, and which it is 
useless, were it possible, to disguise, that the representation 
of God after the model of the highest human morality which 
we are capable of conceiving, is not sufficient to account for 
all the phenomena exhibited by the course of His natural 
Providence. The infliction of physical suffering, the per- 
mission of moral evil, the adversity of the good, the prosperity 
of the wicked, the crimes of the guilty involving the misery 
of the innocent, the tardy appearance and partial distribution 
of moral and religious knowledge in the world, — these are 
facts which no doubt are reconcilable, we know not how, with 
the Infinite Goodness of God; but which certainly are not 
to be explained on the supposition that its sole and sufficient 
type is to be found in the finite goodness of man. What 
right, then, has the philosopher to assume that a criterion 



PREFACE. 19 

which admits of so many exceptions in the facts of nature 
may be applied, without qualification or exception, to the 
statements of revelation? 

The assertion that human morality contains in it a tem- 
poral and relative element, and cannot, in its highest mani- 
festation, be regarded as a complete measure of the absolute 
Goodness of God, has been condemned by one critic as 
" rank Occamism," x and contrasted with the teaching of 
" that marvellously profound, cautious, and temperate thinker," 
Bishop Butler ; it has been denounced by another, of a very 
different school, as " destructive of healthful moral percep- 
tion." That the doctrine in question, instead of being op- 
posed to Butler, is directly taken from him, may be seen by 
any one who will take the trouble to read the extract from 
the Analogy quoted at p. 243. But it is of little importance 



i It is in fact the very reverse of the doctrine usually attributed to 
Occam, which admits of no distinction between absolute and relative 
morality, but maintains that, as all distinction of right and wrong 
depends upon obedience or disobedience to a higher authority, there- 
fore the Divine Xature must be morally indifferent, and all good and 
evil the result of God's arbitrary Will. The above assertion, on the 
other hand, expressly distinguishes absolute from relative morality, 
and regards human virtue and vice as combining an eternal and a 
temporal element, — the one an absolute principle grounded in the im- 
mutable nature of God; the other a relative application, dependent 
upon the created constitution of human nature. But I am by no means 
sure that the "Invincible Doctor" has been quite fairly dealt with in 
this matter. 



20 PREFACE. 

by what authority an opinion is sanctioned, if it will not 
itself stand the test of sound criticism. The admission, that 
a divine command may, under certain circumstances, justify 
an act which would not be justifiable without it, is con- 
demned by some critics as holding out an available excuse 
for any crime committed under any circumstances. If God 
can suspend, on any one occasion, the ordinary obligations 
of morality, how, it is asked, are we to know whether 
any criminal may not equally claim a divine sanction for his 
crimes? Now where, as in the present instance, the sup- 
posed exceptions are expressly stated as supernatural ones, 
analogous to the miraculous suspension of the ordinary laws 
of nature, this objection either proves too much, or proves 
nothing at all. If we believe in the possibility of a super- 
natural Providence at all, we may also believe that God is 
able to authenticate His own mission by proper evidences. 
The objection has no special relation to questions of moral 
duty. It may be asked, in like manner, how we are to 
distinguish a true from a false prophet, or a preacher sent 
by God from one acting on his own responsibility. The 
possibility of a special divine mission of any kind will of 
course be denied by those who reject the supernatural alto- 
gether ; but this denial removes the question into an entirely 
different province of inquiry, where it has no relation to any 
peculiar infallibility supposed to attach to the moral reason, 
above the other faculties of the human mind. 



PREFACE. 21 

Those who believe, with the Scriptures, that the Almighty 
has, at certain times in the world's history, manifested Him- 
self to certain nations or individuals in a supernatural man- 
ner, distinct from His ordinary government of the world by 
the institutions of society, will scarcely be disposed to admit 
the assumption, that God could not on such occasions justify 
by His own authority such acts as are every day justified 
by the authority of the civil magistrate whose power is dele- 
gated from Him. To assert, with one of my critics, that 
upon this principle, " the deed which is criminal on earth may 
be praiseworthy in heaven," is to distort the whole doctrine 
and to beg the whole question. For we must first answer 
the previous inquiry : Does not a deed performed under such 
circumstances cease to be criminal at all, even upon earth? 
The question, so far as moral philosophy is concerned, is 
simply this : Is the moral quality of right or wrong an attri- 
bute so essentially adhering to acts as acts, that the same act 
can never vary in its character according to the motives by 
which it is prompted, or the circumstances under w r hich it 
is committed? If w r e are compelled, as every moralist is 
compelled, to answer this question in the negative, we must 
then ask, in the second place, whether the existence of a 
direct command from the supreme Governor of the world, 
supposing such a command ever to have been given, is one 
of the circumstances which can in any degree affect the char- 
acter of an act. On this question, to judge merely by the 



22 RE FACE. 

conflicting statements on opposite sides, men whose moral judg- 
ments are equally trustworthy may differ one from another ; 
but that very difference is enough to show that the moral 
reason is not by itself a sufficient and infallible oracle on 
such questions. The further inquiry, whether such a com- 
mand has ever, as a matter of fact, been given; and how, 
if given, it can be distinguished from counterfeits, is one 
which does not fall within the province of moral philosophy, 
in itself or in its relation to theology. The philosopher, as 
such, can at most only prepare the way for this inquiry, if 
he can succeed in showing that there is nothing in the moral 
reason of man which entitles it to pronounce on a priori 
grounds, that such a command is absolutely impossible. 

It remains to make some remarks on another of the opin- 
ions maintained in the following Lectures, on which, to judge 
by the criticisms to which it has been subjected, a few words 
of explanation may be desirable. It has been objected by 
reviewers of very opposite schools, that to deny to man a 
knowledge of the Infinite is to make Revelation itself impos- 
sible, and to leave no room for evidences on which reason 
can be legitimately employed. The objection would be per- 
tinent, if I had ever maintained that Revelation is or can 
be a direct manifestation of the Infinite Nature of God. 
But I have constantly asserted the very reverse. In Rev- 
elation, as in Natural Religion, God is represented under 



PREFACE. 23 

finite conceptions, adapted to finite minds ; and the evidences 
on which the authority of Revelation rests are finite and 
comprehensible also. It is true that in Revelation, no less 
than in the exercise of our natural faculties, there is indi- 
rectly indicated the existence of a higher and more abso- 
lute truth, which, as it cannot . be grasped by any effort of 
human thought, cannot be made the vehicle of any valid phil- 
osophical criticism. But the comprehension of this higher 
truth is no more necessary, either to a belief in the contents 
of Revelation or to a reasonable examination of its evi- 
dences, than a conception of the infinite divisibility of mat- 
ter is necessary to the child before it can learn to walk. 

But it is a great mistake to suppose, as some of my critics 
have supposed, that if the Infinite, as an object, is inconceiva- 
ble, therefore the language which denotes it is wholly without 
meaning, and the corresponding state of mind one of com- 
plete quiescence. A negative idea by no means implies a ne- 
gation of all mental activity. 1 It implies an attempt to think, 
and a failure in accomplishing the attempt. The language 
by which such ideas are indicated is not like a word in an 
unknown tongue, which excites no corresponding affection in 
the mind of the hearer. It indicates a relation, if only of 
difference, to that of which we are positively conscious, and 
a consequent effort to pass from the one to the other. This 

1 See Sir W. Hamilton's Discussions, p. 602. 



24 PREFACE. 

is the case even with those more obvious negations of thought 
which arise from the union of two incongruous finite notions. 
We may attempt to conceive a space enclosed by two straight 
lines; and it is not till after the effort has been made that 
we become aware of the impossibility of the conception. And 
it may frequently happen, owing to the use of language as 
a substitute for thought, that a process of reasoning may be 
carried on to a considerable length, without the reasoner being 
aware of the essentially inconceivable character of the ob- 
jects denoted by his terms. This is especially likely when 
the negative character of the notion depends, not, as in the 
above instance, on the union of two attributes which can- 
not be conceived in conjunction, but on the separation of 
those which cannot be conceived apart. We can analyze in 
language what we cannot analyze in thought; and the pres- 
ence of the language often serves to conceal the absence 
of the thought. Thus, for example, it is impossible to con- 
ceive color apart from extension; an unextended color is 
therefore a purely negative notion. . Yet many distinguished 
philosophers have maintained that the connection between 
these two ideas is one merely of association, and have argued 
concerning color apart from extension, with as much confi- 
dence as if their language represented positive thought. The 
speculations concerning the seat of the immaterial soul may 
be cited as another instance of the same kind. Forgetting 
that, to human thought, position in space and occupation of 



PREFACE. 25 

space are notions essentially bound together, and that neither 
can be conceived apart from the other, men have carried on 
various elaborate reasonings, and constructed various plausi- 
ble theories, on the tacit assumption that it is possible to 
assign a local position to an unextended substance. Yet, 
considering that extension itself is necessarily conceived as 
a relation between parts exterior to each other, and that no 
such relation can be conceived as an ultimate and simple 
element of things, it would be the mere dogmatism of igno- 
rance to assert that a relation between the extended and the 
unextended is in itself impossible; though assuredly we are 
unable to conceive how it is possible. 

It is thus manifest that, even granting that all our posi- 
tive consciousness is of the Finite only, it may still be pos- 
sible for men to speculate and reason concerning the Infinite, 
without being aware that their language represents, not 
thought, but its negation. They attempt to separate the 
condition of finiteness from their conception of a given object ; 
and it is not till criticism has detected the self-contradiction 
involved in the attempt, that we learn at last that all human 
efforts to conceive the infinite are derived from the conscious- 
ness, not of what it is, but only of what it is not. 1 

1 A critic in the National 'Review is of opinion that "relative appre- 
hension is always and necessarily of two terms together;" and "if 
of the finite, then also of the infinite." This is true as regards the 

3 



26 PREFACE. 

Whatever value may be attached, in different psycholog- 
ical theories, to that instinct or feeling of our nature which 
compels us to believe in the existence of the Infinite, it is 
clear that, so long as it remains a mere instinct or feeling, 
it cannot be employed for the purpose of theological criti- 
cism. The communication of mental phenomena from man 
to man must always be made in the form of thoughts con- 
veyed through the medium of language. So long as the 
unbeliever can only say, "I feel that this doctrine is false, 
but I cannot say why;" so long as the believer can only 
retort, "I feel that it is true, but I can give no reason for 
my feeling," — there is no common ground on which either 
can hope to influence the other. So long as a man's religion 
is a matter of feeling only, the feeling, whatever may be its 
influence on himself, forms no basis of argument for or against 
the truth of what he believes. But as soon as he inter- 
prets his feelings into thoughts, and proceeds to make those 
thoughts the instruments of criticism constructive or destruc- 
tive, he is bound to submit them to the same logical criteria 
to which he himself subjects the religion on which he is 
commenting. In this relation, it matters not what may be 

meaning of the words; but by no means as regards the conception of 
the corresponding objects. If extended to the latter, it should in con- 
sistency be asserted that the conception of that which is conceivable 
involves also the conception of that which is inconceivable; that the 
consciousness of anything is also a consciousness of nothing; that the 
intuition of space and time is likewise an intuition of the absence of both- 



PREFACE. 27 

the character of our feeling of the infinite, provided our 
conception cannot be exhibited without betraying its own 
inherent weakness by its own self-contradictions. That such 
is the case with that philosophical conception of the Absolute 
and Infinite which has prevailed in almost every philosophy 
of note, from Parmenides to Hegel, it has been the aim of 
these Lectures to show. If a critic maintains that philos- 
ophy, notwithstanding its past failures, may possibly here- 
after succeed in bringing the infinite within the grasp of 
reason, we may be permitted to doubt the assertion until 
the task has been actually accomplished. 

The distinction between speculative and regulative truths, 
which has also been a good deal misapprehended, is one 
which follows inevitably from the abandonment of the phi- 
losophy of the Absolute. If human thought cannot be 
traced up to an absolutely first principle of all knowledge 
and all existence ; if our highest attainable truths bear the 
marks of subordination to something higher and unattaina- 
ble, — it follows, if we are to act or believe at all, that our 
practice and belief must be based on principles which do 
not satisfy all the requirements of the speculative reason. 
But it should be remembered that this distinction is not 
peculiar to the evidences of religion. It is shown that in 
all departments of human knowledge alike, — in the laws 
of thought, in the movement of our limbs, in the perception 



28 PREFACE, 

of our senses, the truths which guide our practice cannot be 
reduced to principles which satisfy our reason; and that, if 
religious thought is placed under the same restrictions, this 
is but in strict analogy to the general conditions to which 
God has subjected man in his search after truth. One half 
of the rationalist's objections against revealed religion would 
fall to the ground, if men would not commit the very irra- 
tional error of expecting clearer conceptions and more rigid 
demonstrations of the invisible things of God, than those 
which they are content to aecept and act upon in all the 
concerns of their earthly life. 

The above are all the explanations which, so far as I can 
at present judge, appear to be desirable, to obviate probable 
misapprehensions regarding the general principles advocated 
in these pages. Had I thought it worth while to enter into 
controversy on minute questions of detail, or to reply to 
misapprehensions which are due solely to the inadvertence 
of individual readers, 1 1 might have extended these remarks 

X A writer in the Christian Observer has actually mistaken the posi- 
tions against which the author is contending for those which he main- 
tains, and on the strength of this mistake has blundered through several 
pages of vehement denunciation of the monstrous consequences which 
follow from the assumption that the philosophical conception of the 
absolute is the true conception of God. The absolute and the infinite, 
he tells us (in opposition to the Lecturer!!!), "are names of God 
unknown to the Scriptures : " " The conception of infinity is plainly 
negative:" "the absolute and infinite, as defined in the Lectures after 



PREFACE. 29 

to a considerably greater length. For the present I shall 
content myself with only two further observations ; one on 
a single sentence, the language of which, having been mis- 
interpreted in more than one quarter, may perhaps need 
a brief explanation ; the other on a matter affecting, not 
the literary merit of these Lectures, but the personal hon- 
esty of their author. 

The sentence occurs at p. 46, in the following words: 
"'What kind of an Absolute Being is that,' says Hegel, 
'which does not contain in itself all that is actual, even evil 
included ? ' We may repudiate the conclusion with indig- 
nation; but the reasoning is unassailable. If the Absolute 



the leaders of German metaphysics, is no synonym for the true and 
living God:" and "a philosophy of the so-called absolute is a spuri- 
ous theology." Est il possible ? 

The same critic denounces, as " radically and thoroughly untrue," the 
distinction between speculative and regulative truths, and the conse- 
quent assertion that action, and not knowledge, is man's destiny and 
duty in this life, and that his highest principles, both in philosophy and 
in religion, have reference to this end. "On the contrary," he says, 
"all right action depends on right knowledge." As if this were not 
the very meaning of a regulative truth, — knowledge for the sake of 
action. 

Another critic asserts that the author "sweeps down schoolmen and 
saints and infidels alike, with the assertion that dogmatism and ration- 
alism equally assign to some superior tribunal the right of determining 
what is essential to religion and what is not." Had he looked a second 
time at the page which he quotes, he would have seen that this is said 
of rationalism alone. 

3* 



80 PREFACE. 

and Infinite is an object of human conception at all, this, 
and none other, is the conception required." 

This passage has been censured by more than one critic, 
as involving the skeptical admission that a false conclusion 
can be logically deduced from true premises. The conclud- 
ing words may explain the real meaning. The whole argu- 
ment is designed to show that to speak of a conception of 
the Absolute implies a self-contradiction at the outset, and 
that to reason upon such a conception involves ab initio a 
violation of the laws of human thought. That reasoning 
based on this assumption must end by annihilating itself, is 
surely no very dangerous concession to the skeptic. Suppose 
that an author had written such a sentence as the following : 

"A circular parallelogram must have its opposite sides 
and angles equal, and must also be such that all lines drawn 
from the centre to the circumference shall be equal to each 
other. The conclusion is absurd ; but the reasoning is unas- 
sailable, supposing that a circular parallelogram can be con- 
ceived at all." 

Would such a statement involve any formidable conse- 
quences either to geometry or to logic? 

It remains only to say a few words on a question of fact, 



PREFACE. 31 

involving one of the most serious accusations that can be 
brought against the character of an author. A writer in 
the Rambler, to whom in other respects I feel indebted for 
a liberal and kindly appreciation of my labors, has qual- 
ified his favorable judgment by the grave charge that the 
"whole gist of the book" is borrowed without acknowledg- 
ment from the teaching of Dr. Newman, as a preacher or 
as a writer. Against a charge of this kind there is but one 
possible defence. No obligation was acknowledged, simply 
because none existed. I say this, assuredly with no inten- 
tion to speak slightingly of one whose transcendent gifts no 
differences should hinder me from acknowledging; but be- 
cause it is necessary, in justice to myself, to state exactly 
the relation in which I stand towards him. Dr. Newman's 
teaching from the University pulpit was almost at its close 
before my connection with Oxford began: his parochial 
sermons I had very seldom an opportunity of hearing. His 
published writings might doubtless have given me much 
valuable assistance; but with these I was but slightly ac- 
quainted when these Lectures were first published ; and the 
little that I knew contained nothing which appeared to bear 
upon my argument. This is but one out of many deficien- 
cies, of which I have been painfully conscious during the 
progress of the work, and which I would gladly have endeav- 
ored to supply, had circumstances allowed me a longer time 
for direct preparation. 



32 PREFACE. 

The point, indeed, on which the Reviewer lays the most 
stress, is one in which there was little room for originality, 
either in myself or in my supposed teacher. That Reve- 
lation is accommodated to the limitations of man's faculties, 
and is primarily designed for the purpose of practical reli- 
gion, and not for those of speculative philosophy, has been 
said over and over again by writers of almost every age, 
and is indeed a truth so obvious that it might have occurred 
independently to almost any number of thinkers. Doubt- 
less there is no truth, however trite and obvious, which 
may not assume a new and striking aspect in the hands of 
a great and original writer ; and in this, as in other respects, 
a better acquaintance with Dr. Newman's works might have 
taught me a better mode of expressing many arguments to 
which my own language may have done but imperfect jus- 
tice. Even at this late hour, I am tempted to subjoin, as 
a conclusion to these observations, one passage of singular 
beauty and truth, of which, had I known it earlier, I would 
gladly have availed myself, as pointing out the true spirit 
in which inquiries like these should be pursued, and the 
practical lesson which they are designed to teach. 

" And should any one fear lest thoughts such as these 
should tend to a dreary and hopeless skepticism, let him 
take into account the Being and Providence of God, the 
Merciful and True; and he will at once be relieved of 



PREFACE. 33 

his anxiety. All is dreary till we believe, what our hearts 
tell us, that we are subjects of His Governance ; nothing 
is dreary, all inspires hope and trust, directly we under- 
stand that Ave are under His hand, and that whatever 
comes to us is from Him, as a method of discipline and 
guidance. What is it to us whether the knowledge He 
gives us be greater or less, if it be He who gives it? 
What is it to us whether it be exact or vague, if He bids 
us trust it ? What have we to care whether we are or are 
not given to divide substance from shadow, if He is train- 
ing us heavenward by means of either? Why should we 
vex ourselves to find whether our deductions are philo- 
sophical or no, provided they are religious? If our senses 
supply the media by which we are put on trial, by which 
we are all brought together, and hold intercourse with each 
other, and are disciplined, and are taught, and enabled to 
benefit others, it is enough. We have an instinct within 
us, impelling us, we have external necessity forcing us, to 
trust our senses, and we may leave the question of their 
substantial truth for another world, 'till the day break, and 
the shadows flee away/ And what is true of reliance on 
our senses, is true of all the information which it has 
pleased God to vouchsafe to us, whether in nature or in 
grace." l 
Oxford, February 18th, 1859. 

1 University Sermons, p. 351. 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE I. 

Dogmatism and Rationalism as methods of religious philosophy — mean- 
ing of these terms — errors of the respective systems denoted by 
each; the one forcing reason into agreement with revelation, the other 
forcing revelation into agreement with reason. — Both methods may 
be regarded as attempts, from opposite sides, to produce exact coin- 
cidence between belief and thought. — Instances of each exhibited 
and examined. — Human conceptions are unavoidable in Theology; 
but there is need of some principle to determine their proper place 
in it. — Such a principle can only be gained by an investigation of 
the Limits of Human Thought. — The proper object of criticism is 
not religion, but the human mind in its relation to religion. — A 
direct criticism of religion as a representation of God can only be 
accomplished by the construction of a Philosophy of the Infinite. — 
It is therefore necessary to inquire whether such a philosophy is pos- 
sible; and this can only be ascertained by an examination of the 
laws of human thought in general, which will determine those of 
religious thought in particular. — Analogous difficulties may be ex- 
pected in philosophy and in religion, arising from the limitations of 



36 CONTENTS. 

thought common to both. — Contrast between two opposite statements 
of the extent of human knowledge, in the words of St. Paul and 
of Hegel. — Purpose of the following Lectures, as an Examination 
of the Limits of Religious Thought, 21 



LECTURE II. 

Statement of the two opposite methods by which a Philosophy of Re- 
ligion may be attempted; the Objective or Metaphysical, based on 
a supposed knowledge of the nature of God, and the Subjective or 
Psychological, based on a knowledge of the mental faculties of man. 

— Relation of these methods respectively to the Criticism of Revela- 
tion — dependence of the former method upon the latter. — Further 
examination of the Objective or Metaphysical method. Two differ- 
ent modes in which man may be supposed to be capable of attaining 
to a knowledge of God — specimen of each — insufficiency of both 
to found a Rational Theology. — Examination of the fundamental 
ideas of Rational Theology, — the Absolute — the Infinite — the First 
Cause — mutual contradictions involved in these three ideas — con- 
ception of an eternal Causation incompatible with the Absolute — 
conception of a temporal Causation incompatible with the Infinite. 

— The Absolute cannot be conceived as a necessary and unconscious 
cause, — nor as a voluntary and conscious cause, — nor as possess- 
ing consciousness at all, — nor as containing within itself any kind 
of relation, — nor as one and simple, out of all relation. Effect of 
these counter impossibilities on the conceptions of Theology — ap- 
parent contradictions in the conception of the Divine Attributes as 
absolute and infinite. — Further contradictions involved in the coex- 
istence of the Relative with the Absolute, and of the Finite with 
the Infinite. Pantheism avoids these contradictions by denying the 



CONTENTS. 37 

existence of the Finite and Relative — this solution untenable — 
self-contradictions of the Pantheistic hypothesis. — Alternative of 
Atheism, which denies the existence of the Infinite and Absolute 
— contradictions involved in this hypothesis. — Summary of conclu- 
sions. — Necessary failure of all attempts to construct a Metaphysi- 
cal Theology — alternative necessitated by this failure. — Practical 
result of the above inquiry, 44 



LECTURE III. 

Recapitulation of the results of the last Lecture. — Necessity of ex- 
amining the Philosophy of Religion from the Subjective or Psy- 
chological side, as dependent upon a knowledge of the laws of the 
human mind. — General conditions of all human Consciousness. — 
First condition of Consciousness, Distinction between one Object and 
another — such a distinction necessarily implies Limitation — conse- 
quent impossibility of conceiving the Infinite. — Explanation of the 
contradictions involved in the idea of the Infinite — this idea inad- 
missible as the basis of a scientific Theology. — Second condition of 
Consciousness, Relation between Subject and Object — consequent impossi- 
bility of conceiving the Absolute. — Explanation of the contradic- 
tions involved in the idea of the Absolute. — Impossibility of a par- 
tial knowledge of the Infinite and Absolute. — Third condition of 
Consciousness, Succession and Duration in Time — hence all objects are 
conceived as finite — consequent impossibility of conceiving Creation, 
and counter impossibility of conceiving finite existence as uncreated. 
— Attempt to evade this limitation in Theology by the hypothesis 
of the existence of God out of Time — this hypothesis untenable 
in philosophy and unavailable in theology. — Fourth condition of Con- 
sciousness, Personality — Personality a limitation and a relation, and 

4 



38 CONTENTS. 

hence inadequate to represent the Infinite. — Theological conse- 
quences of this condition. Personality the source and type of our 
conception of Reality, and therefore the only fitting representation of 
God. — Necessity of thinking of God as personal and yet of believing 
in Him as infinite — apparent contradiction between these represen- 
tations — hence Thought cannot be the measure of Belief. — Conse- 
quent impossibility of constructing a Rational Theology. — Attempt 
to avoid the above conclusions by placing the Philosophy of the 
Infinite in a point beyond Consciousness — necessary failure of this 
attempt. — Summary of Conclusions. — Practical lesson from the above 
inquiry, 67 



LECTURE IV. 

Analysis of the religious Consciousness, reflective and intuitive. — 
Relation of the reflective Consciousness to Theology; its reasonings 
sufficient to correct our conception of a Supreme Being, but not 
to originate it — examination of some current theories on this point 
— statement of the value of the reflective faculties within their 
proper limits. — Reflection, as well as intuition necessary to distinct 
consciousness; but intuition is first in the order of nature, though 
not in that of time. — Two principal modes of religious intuition — 
the Feeling of Dependence and the Conviction of Moral Obligation, 
giving rise respectively to Prayer and Expiation. — Examination of 
these two modes of Consciousness. — Dependence implies a Personal 
Superior; hence our conviction of the Power of God — Moral Obli- 
gation implies a Moral Lawgiver ; hence our conviction of the 
Goodness of God. — Limits of the Religious Consciousness — Sense 
of Dependence not a consciousness of the Absolute and Infinite — 
opposite theory of Schleiermacher on this point — objections to his 



CONTENTS. 89 

view. — Sense of Moral Obligation not a consciousness of the Ab- 
solute and Infinite. — Yet the Infinite is indirectly implied by the 
religious consciousness, though not apprehended as such; for the 
consciousness of limitation carries with it an indirect conviction of 
the existence of the Infinite beyond consciousness. — Result of the 
above analysis — our knowledge of God relative and not absolute 

— the Infinite an object of belief, but not of thought or know- 
ledge; hence we may know that an Infinite God exists, but not 
what He is as Infinite. — Further results of an examination of the 
religious consciousness. — God known as a Person through the con- 
sciousness of ourselves as Persons — this consciousness indispensable 
to Theism; for the denial of our own Personality, whether in the 
form of Materialism or of Pantheism, logically leads to Atheism. 

— Summary of conclusions — our religious knowledge is regulative, 
but not speculative — importance of this distinction in theological 
reasoning — conception of the Infinite inadmissible in Theology. 

— Office of religious philosophy, as limited to finite conceptions. — 
Practical benefits of this limitation. — Conclusion, 90 



lecture v. 

Distinction between Speculative and Regulative Truth further pursued. 
— In Philosophy, as well as Religion, our highest principles of 
thought are regulative and not speculative. — Instances in the Ideas 
of Liberty and Necessity; Unity and Plurality as implied in the con- 
ception of any object; Commerce between Soul and Body; Exten- 
sion, as implied in external perception; and Succession, as implied 
in the entire consciousness. —Illustration thus afforded for deter- 
mining the limits of thought — distinction between legitimate and 
illegitimate thought, as determined by their relation to the inexplicable 



40 CONTENTS. 

and the self-contradictory respectively. — Conclusion to be drawn as 
regards the manner of the mind's operation — all Consciousness 
implies a relation between Subject and Object, dependent on their ' 
mutual action and reaction; and thus no principle of thought can 
be regarded as absolute and simple, as an ultimate and highest truth. 

— Analogy in this respect between Philosophy and Natural Religion 
which apprehends the Infinite under finite forms — corresponding 
difficulties to be expected in each. — Provinces of Reason and Faith. 

— Analogy extended to Revealed Religion — testimony of Revela- 
tion plain and intelligible when regarded as regulative, but ulti- 
mately incomprehensible to speculation — corresponding errors in Phi- 
losophy and Religion, illustrating this analogy. — Regulative con- 
ceptions not therefore untrue. — The above principles confirmed by 
the teaching of Scripture. — Revelation expressly adapted to the 
limits of human thought. — Relation of the Infinite to the Personal 
in the representations of God in the Old Testament. — Further con- 
firmation from the New Testament. — Doctrine of the Incarnation; 
its practical position in Theology as a regulative truth; its perver- 
sion by modern philosophy, in the attempt to exhibit it as a specu- 
lative truth. — Instances in Hegel, Marheineke, and Strauss. — Con- 
clusion, 112 



LECTURE VI. 

Result of the previous inquiries — religious ideas contain two elements, 
a Form, common to them with all other ideas, as being human 
thoughts; and a Matter, peculiar to themselves, as thoughts about 
religious objects — hence there may exist two possible kinds of 
difficulties; the one formal arising from the universal laws of 
human thought; the other material arising from the peculiar nature 



CONTENTS. 41 

of religious evidence. — The principal objections suggested by Ra- 
tionalism are of the former kind; common to all human thinking 
as such, and therefore to Rationalism itself. — Proof of this posi- 
tion by the exhibition of parallel difficulties in Theology and Phi- 
losophy. — Our ignorance of the nature of God compared with our 
ignorance of the nature of Causation. — Doctrine of the Trinity 
compared with the philosophical conception of the Infinite and the 
Absolute, as one and yet as many. — Doctrine of the eternal gen- 
eration of the Son compared with the relation of an Infinite Sub- 
stance to its Attributes. — Purpose of such comparisons, not to 
prove the doctrines, but to show the weakness of human reason with 
regard to them — true evidence of the doctrines to be found, not 
in Reason, but in Revelation. — Further parallels. — Doctrine of the 
twofold nature of Christ compared with the philosophical concep- 
tion of the Infinite as coexisting with the Finite. — Reason thus 
shown not to be the supreme judge of religious truth; for Religion 
must begin with that which is above Reason. — Extension of the 
same argument to our conceptions of Divine Providence. — Repre- 
sentations of General Law and Special Interposition — supposed 
difficulty in the conception of the latter shown to be really com- 
mon to all human conceptions of the Infinite. — Both representa- 
tions equally imperfect as speculative truths, and both equally nec- 
essary as regulative. — Imperfections in the conception of General 
Law and mechanical action of the universe — this conception is 
neither philosophically necessary nor empirically universal ; and 
hence it is not entitled to supersede all other representations — 
it is inapplicable to the phenomena of mind, and only partially 
available in relation to those of matter. — Conception of Mirac- 
ulous Agency, as subordinate to that of Special Providence — no 
sufficient ground, either from philosophy or from experience, for 
asserting that miracles are impossible. — Comparison between the 
opposite conceptions of a miracle, as an exception to a law, or as 

4* 



42 CONTENTS. 

the result of a higher law — both these conceptions are specula- 
tively imperfect, but the former is preferable as a regulative truth. 
— Summary of Conclusions — parallel difficulties must exist in The- 
ology and in Philosophy — true value and province of Reason in re- 
lation to both, 134 



LECTURE VII. 

Philosophical parallel continued with regard to the supposed moral 
objections to Christian doctrines. — Error of the moral theory of 
Kant. — Moral convictions how far necessary and trustworthy, how 
far contingent and fallible — parallel in this respect between moral 
and mathematical science, as based on the formal conditions of ex- 
perience — possibility of corresponding errors in both. — Human mo- 
rality not absolute, but relative. — The Moral Law cannot be con- 
ceived as an absolute principle, apart from its temporal manifesta- 
tions — parallel in the idea of Time and its relations. — Morality, 
as conceived by us, necessarily contains a human and positive ele- 
ment; and therefore cannot be the measure of the Absolute Nature 
of God. — Application of the above principles to Christian Theology. 
— The Atonement — weakness of the supposed moral objections to 
this doctrine — such objections equally applicable to any conceivable 
scheme of Divine Providence. — Predestination and Free Will — Pre- 
destination, as a determination of the Absolute Mind, is specu- 
latively inconceivable, and therefore cannot be known to be incom- 
patible with human Freedom — parallel in this respect between Pre- 
destination in Theology and Causation in Philosophy . — Eternal Pun- 
ishment — rashness and ignorance of rationalist criticisms of this 
doctrine — the difficulties of the doctrine are not peculiar to Theol- 
ogy, but common to all Philosophy, and belong to the general 



CONTENTS. 43 

problem of the existence of Evil at all, which is itself but a subor- 
dinate case of the universal impossibility of conceiving the coexist- 
ence of the Infinite with the Finite. — Contrast between illegitimate 
and legitimate mode of reasoning on evil and its punishment — 
illustrations to be derived from analogies in the course of nature 
and in the constitution of the human mind. — Extension of the 
argument from analogy to other religious doctrines — Original Sin 
— Justification by Faith — Operation of Divine Grace. — Limits of 
the Moral Reason. — Conclusion, 158 



LECTURE VIII. 

Right use of Reason in religious questions — Reason entitled to judge 
of a Religion in respect of its evidences, as addressed to men, but 
not in respect of its correspondence with philosophical conceptions 
of the Absolute Nature of God. — No one faculty of the human 
mind is entitled to exclusive preference as the criterion of religious 
truth — the true criterion is to be found in the general result of 
many and various Evidences — practical neglect of this rule by dif- 
ferent writers. — Comparative value of internal and external evi- 
dences of religion, the former as negative, the latter as positive. — 
Cautions as requisite in the use of the negative argument from in- 
ternal evidence — external and internal evidence can only be esti- 
mated in conjunction with each other. — Distinction between the 
proper and improper use of the Moral Sense in questions of relig- 
ious evidence. — Application of this distinction to facts recorded in 
Sacred History. — Analogy between physical and moral laws as re- 
gards miraculous interventions. — Probable and partial character of 
the moral argument ; error of supposing it to be demonstrative 
and complete ; possibility of mistakes in its application. — General 



44 CONTENTS. 

summary of Christian Evidences — alternative in the case of their 
rejection — Christ's teaching either wholly divine or wholly human. 
— Impossibility of an eclectic Christianity. — Value of the a priori 
presumption against miracles — nothing gained in point of probabil- 
ity by a partial rejection of the supernatural. — Christianity regarded 
as a Revelation must be accepted wholly or not at all. — Specu- 
lative difficulties in religion form a part of our probation — anal- 
ogy between moral and intellectual temptations. — General result of 
an examination of the Limits of Religious Thought — Theology 
not a speculative science, nor in the course of progressive develop- 
ment. — Cautions needed in the treatment of religious knowledge 
as regulative — this view does not solve difficulties, but only shows 
why they are insoluble. — Instance of the neglect of this caution in 
Archbishop King's rule of scripture interpretation as regards the Divine 
Attributes. — No explanation possible of those difficulties which arise 
from the universal laws of human thought — such difficulties are inher- 
ent in our mental constitution, and form part of our training and 
discipline during this life. — The office of Philosophy is not to give 
us a knowledge of the absolute nature of God, but to teach us to 
know ourselves and the limits of our faculties. — Conclusion, . . 180 



THE 



LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 

EXAMINED. 



LECTURE I. 

YE SHALL NOT ADD UNTO THE WORD WHICH I COMMAND YOU, 
NEITHER SHALL YE DIMINISH AUGHT EROM IT. — DEUT. IV. 2. 

Dogmatism and Rationalism are the two extremes be- 
tween which religious philosophy perpetually oscillates. 
Each represents a system from which, when nakedly and 
openly announced, the well regulated mind almost instinc- 
tively shrinks back; yet which, in some more or less 
specious disguise, will be found to underlie the antagonist 
positions of many a theological controversy. Many a 
man who rejects isolated portions of Christian doctrine, 
on the ground that they are repugnant to his reason, 
would hesitate to avow broadly and unconditionally that 
reason is the supreme arbiter of all religious truth; 
though at the same time he would find it hard to point 
out any particular in which the position of reason, in rela- 
tion to the truths which he still retains, differs from that 
which it occupies in relation to those which he rejects. 
And on the other hand, there are many who, while they 
would by no means construct a dogmatic system on the 
assumption that the conclusions of reason may always be 



46 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. I. 

made to coincide with those of revelation, yet, for want 
of an accurate distinction between that which is within 
the province of human thought and that which is beyond 
it, are accustomed in practice to demand the assent of the 
reason to positions which it is equally incompetent to 
affirm or to deny. Thus they not only lessen the value 
of the service which it is capable of rendering within its 
legitimate sphere, but also indirectly countenance that 
very intrusion of the human intellect into sacred things, 
which, in some of its other aspects, they so strongly and 
so justly condemn. 

In using the above terms, it is necessary to state at the 
outset the sense in which each is employed, and to eman- 
cipate them from the various and vague associations con- 
nected with their ordinary use. I do not include under 
the name of Dogmatism the mere enunciation of religious 
truths, as resting upon authority and not upon reasoning. 
The Dogmatist, as well as the Rationalist, is the con- 
structor of a system; and in constructing it, however 
much the materials upon which he works may be given by 
a higher authority, yet in connecting them together and 
exhibiting their systematic form, it is necessary to call in 
the aid of human ability. Indeed, whatever may be their 
actual antagonism in the field of religious controversy, the 
two terms are in their proper sense so little exclusive of 
each other, that both were originally employed to denote 
the same persons; — the name Dogmatists or Rationalists 
being indifferently given to those medical theorists who 
insisted on the necessity of calling in the aid of rational 
principles, to support or correct the conclusions furnished 
by experience.* 1 ) A like signification is to be found in 
the later language of philosoj)hy, when the term Dogma- 
tists was used to denote those philosophers who endeav- 
0) Numbers within brackets refer to Notes at the close of the volume. 



Lect I. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 47 

ored to explain the phenomena of experience by means of 
rational conceptions and demonstrations ; the intelligible 
world being regarded as the counterpart of the sensible, 
and the necessary relations of the former as the principles 
and ground of the observed facts of the latter. ( 2 ) It is 
in a sense analogous to this that the term may be most 
accurately used in reference to Theology. Scripture is to 
the theological Dogmatist what Experience is to the philo- 
sophical. It supplies him with the facts to which his 
system has to adapt itself. It contains in an unsystematic 
form the positive doctrines, which further inquiry has to 
exhibit as supported by reasonable grounds and connected 
into a scientific whole. Theological Dogmatism is thus 
an application of reason to the support and defence of 
preexisting statements of Scripture. ( 3 ) Rationalism, on 
the other hand, so far as it deals with Scripture at all, 
deals with it as a thing to be adapted to the independent 
conclusions of the natural reason, and to be rejected 
where that adaptation cannot conveniently be made. By 
nationalism^ without intending to limit the name to any 
single school or period in theological controversy, I mean 
generally to designate that system whose final test of 
truth is placed in the direct assent of the human con- 
sciousness, whether in the form of logical deduction, or 
moral judgment, or religious intuition ; by whatever pre- 
vious process those faculties may have been raised to 
their assumed dignity as arbitrators. The Rationalist, as 
such, is not bound to maintain that a divine revelation of 
religious truth is impossible, nor even to deny that it has 
actually been given. He may admit the existence of the 
revelation as a fact : he may acknowledge its utility as & 
temporary means of instruction for a ruder age : he may 
even accept certain portions as of universal and permanent 



48 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. I. 

authority. ( 4 ) But he assigns to some superior tribunal 
the right of determining what is essential to religion and 
what is not : he claims for himself and his age the privi- 
lege of accepting or rejecting any given revelation, wholly 
or in part, according as it does or does not satisfy the con- 
ditions of some higher criterion to be supplied by the 
human consciousness. ( 5 ) 

In relation to the actual condition of religious truth, as 
communicated by Holy Scripture, Dogmatism and Ration- 
alism may be considered as severally representing, the one 
•the spirit which adds to the word of God, the other that 
which diminishes from it. Whether a complete system of 
scientific Theology could or could not have been given by 
direct revelation, consistently with the existing laws of 
human thought and the purposes which Revelation is de- 
signed to answer, it is at least certain that such a system 
is not given in the Revelation which we possess, but, if it 
is to exist at all, must be constructed out of it by human 
interpretation. And it is in attempting such a construc- 
tion that Dogmatism and Rationalism exhibit their most 
striking contrasts. The one seeks to build up a complete 
scheme of theological doctrine out of the unsystematic 
materials furnished by Scripture, partly by the more com- 
plete development of certain leading ideas ; partly by ex- 
tending the apparent import of the Revelation to ground 
which it does not avowedly occupy, and attempting by 
inference and analogy to solve problems which the sacred 
volume may indeed suggest, but which it does not directly 
answer. The other aims at the same end by opposite 
means. It strives to attain to unity and completeness 
of system, not by filling up supposed deficiencies, but by 
paring down supposed excrescences. Commencing with a 
preconceived theory of the purpose of a revelation and 



Lect. I THOUGHT EXAMINED. 49 

the form which it ought to assume, it proceeds to remove 
or reduce all that will not harmonize with this leading 
idea ; sometimes explaining away in the interpretation that 
which it accepts as given in the letter; sometimes denying, 
on a priori grounds, the genuineness of this or that por- 
tion of the sacred text ; sometimes pretending to distin- 
guish between the several j)urposes of Revelation itself, 
and to determine what portions are intended to convey 
the elements of an absolute religion, valid in all countries 
and for all ages, and what must be regarded as relative 
and accidental features of the divine plan, determined by 
the local or temporal peculiarities of the individuals to 
whom it was first addressed. 

The two methods thus contrasted may appear at first 
sight to represent the respective claims of Faith and Rea- 
son, each extended to that point at which it encroaches on 
the domain of the other. But in truth the contrast be- 
tween Faith and Reason, if it holds good in this relation 
at all, does so merely by accident. It may be applicable 
in some instances to the disciples of the respective systems, 
but not to the teachers ; and even as regards the former, 
it is but partially and occasionally true. The disciples of 
the Rationalist are not necessarily the disciples of reason. 
It is quite as possible to receive with unquestioning sub- 
mission a system of religion or philosophy invented by a 
human teacher, as it is to believe, upon the authority of 
Revelation, doctrines which no human reason is competent 
to discover. The so-called freethinker is as often as any 
other man the slave of some self-chosen master; and many 
who scorn the imputation of believing anything merely 
because it is found in the Bible, would find it hard to give 
any better reason for their own unbelief than the ipse dixit 
of some infidel philosopher. But when we turn from the 

5 



50 . LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. I. 

disciples to the teachers, and look to the origin of Dogma- 
tism and Rationalism as systems, we find both alike to be 
the products of thought, operating in different ways upon 
the same materials. Faith, properly so called, is not con- 
structive, but receptive. It cannot supply the missing por- 
tions of an incomplete system, though it may bid us remain 
content with the deficiency. It cannot of itself give har- 
mony to the discordant voices of religious thought ; it 
cannot reduce to a single focus the many-colored rays into 
which the light of God's presence is refracted in its passage 
through the human soul ; though it may bid us look for- 
ward to a time when the eyes of the blind shall be opened, 
and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped; 1 when that 
apparent discord shall be known but as the echo of a half- 
heard concert, and those diverging rays shall be blended 
once more in the pure white light of heaven. But Faith 
alone cannot suggest any actual solution of our doubts : it 
can offer no definite reconciliation of apparently conflicting 
truths ; for in order to accomplish that end, the hostile ele- 
ments must be examined, compared, accommodated, and 
joined together, one with another; and such a process is 
an act of thought, not of belief. Considered from this 
point of view, both Dogmatism and Rationalism may be 
regarded as emanating from the same source, and amenable 
to the same principles of criticism ; in so far as they keep 
within or go beyond those limits of sound thought which 
the laws of man's mind, or the circumstances in which he 
is placed, have imposed upon him. 

In fact the two systems may be considered as both aim' 
ing, though in different ways, at the same end ; that end 
being to produce a coincidence between what we believe 
and what we think ; to remove the boundary which sepa- 

i Isaiah xxxv, 5. 



Lect. I. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 51 

rates the conrprehensible from the incorrrprehensible. The 
Dogmatist employs reason to prove, almost as much as the 
Rationalist employs it to disprove. The one, in the char- 
acter of an advocate, accepts the doctrines of revealed 
religion as conclusions, but appeals to the reason, enlight- 
ened, it may be, by Revelation, to find premises to support 
them. The other, in the character of a critic, draws his 
premises from reason in the first instance ; and, adopting 
these as his standard, either distorts the revealed doctrine 
into conformity with them, or, if it obstinately resists this 
treatment, sets it aside altogether. The one strives to lift 
up reason to the point of view occupied by Revelation : 
the other strives to bring down Revelation to the level of 
reason. And both alike have prejudged or neglected the 
previous inquiry, — Are there not definite and discernible 
limits to the province of reason itself, whether it be exer- 
cised for advocacy or for criticism ? 

Thus, to select one example out of many, the revealed 
doctrine of Christ's Atonement for the sins of men has 
been alternately defended and assailed by some such argu- 
ments as these. We have been told, on the one hand, that 
man's redemption could not have been brought about by 
any other means < 6 ) : — that God could not, consistently 
with his own attributes, have suffered man to perish unre- 
deemed, or have redeemed him by any inferior sacrifice ( 7 ): 

— that man, redeemed from death, must become the serv- 
ant of him who redeems him ; and that it was not meet 
that he should be the servant of any other than God ( 8 > : 

— that no other sacrifice could have satisfied divine jus- 
tice ( 9 ): — that no other victim could have endured the 
burden of God's wrath. ( 10 ) These and similar arguments 
have been brought forward, as one of the greatest of 
their authors avows, to defend the teaching of the Cath- 



52 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. I. 

olic Faith on the ground of a reasonable ?iecessityA 11 ) 
While, on the other hand, it has been argued that the 
revealed doctrine itself cannot be accepted as literally 
true ; because we cannot believe that God was angry, and 
needed to be propitiated^ 2 ): — because it is inconsistent 
with the Divine Justice that the innocent should suffer for 
the sins of the guilty ( 18 ) : — because it is more reasonable 
to believe that God freely forgives the offences of his crea- 
tures ( 14 ) : — because we cannot conceive how the punish- 
ment of one can do away with the guilt of another. ( 15 ) 

I quote these arguments only as specimens of the method 
in which Christian doctrines have been handled by writers 
on opposite sides. To examine them more in detail would 
detain me too long from my main purpose. I shall not 
therefore at present consider whether the conclusions actu- 
ally arrived at, on the one side or on the other, are in 
themselves reasonable or unreasonable, orthodox or hereti- 
cal. I am concerned only with the methods respectively 
employed, and the need of some rule for their employ- 
ment. May reason be used without restriction in defence 
or refutation of religious doctrines ? And if not, what are 
the conditions of its legitimate use ? It may be that this 
man has defended, on reasonable grounds, none but the 
most essential articles of the Christian Faith : but has he 
pointed out any rule which can hinder the same or similar 
reasoning from being advanced by another in support of 
the most dangerous errors ? It may be that that man has 
employed the test of reasonableness, only in the refutation 
of opinions concerning which the church has pronounced 
no positive judgment : but has he fenced his method round 
with any cautions to prevent its being used for the over- 
throw of Christianity itself? If Ave can find no other 
ground than the arbitrary will of the man himself, why he 



Lect. I. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 53 

should stop short at the particular point which he has 
chosen, we may not perhaps condemn the tenets of the 
individual, but we may fairly charge his method with the 
consequences to which it logically leads us. 

Thus, we find a late lamented writer of our own day, 
and at that time of our own church, defending the doc- 
trine of the Incarnation of Christ, on the metaphysical 
assumption of the real existence of an abstract humanity. 
"This," he tells us, "is why the existence of human 
nature is a thing too precious to be surrendered to the 
subtleties of logic, because, upon its existence depends 
that real manhood of Christ, which renders him a co- 
partner with ourselves." And again : " To the reality 
of this work, the existence of that common nature is 
indispensable, whereby, as the children were partakers of 
flesh and blood, He Himself took part of the same. Else, 
how would the perfect assumption of humanity have con- 
sisted with His retaining that divine personality which 
it was impossible that He should surrender? Since it 
was no new person which He took, it can only have been 
the substratum, in which personality has its existence." ( 16 ) 
In this case, our belief in the undeniable truth of the 
doctrine defended may dispose us to overlook the ques- 
tionable character of the defence. But if we are in- 
clined for a moment to acquiesce in this unnatural union 
of metaphysical premises and theological conclusions, we 
are recalled to ourselves by the recollection of the fearful 
consequence which Occam deduces from the same hypoth- 
esis, of the assumption by Christ of a " substratum in 
which personality has its existence ; " — a consequence 
drawn in language which we shudder to read, even as 
it is employed by its author, merely for the purpose of 

5* 



54 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. I. 

reducing to an absurdity the principles of his antago- 
nists. < 17 ) 

There is an union of Philosophy with Religion in which 
each contributes to the support of the other ; and there 
is also an union which, under the appearance of support, 
does but undermine the foundations and prey upon the 
life of both. To which of these two the above argument 
belongs, it needs but a bare statement of its assumption 
to determine. It tells us that our belief in the doctrine 
of God manifest in the flesh, indispensably depends upon 
our acceptance of the Realist theory of the nature of 
universal notions. Philosophy and Theology alike pro- 
test against such an outrage upon the claims, both of Rea- 
son and of Revelation, as is implied in this association 
of one of the most fundamental truths of the Christian 
Faith with one of the most questionable speculations of 
mediaeval metaphysics. What does Theology gain by 
this employment of a weapon which may, at any moment, 
be turned against her? Does it make one whit clearer 
to our understandings that mysterious two-fold nature of 
one Christ, very God, and very Man ? By no means. It 
was a truth above human comprehension before ; and it 
remains a truth above human comprehension still. We 
believe that Christ is both God and Man ; for this is 
revealed to us. We know not how He is so ; for this is 
not revealed ; and we can learn it in no other way. The- 
ology gains nothing ; but she is in danger of losing every- 
thing. Her most precious truths are cut from the anchor 
which held them firm, and cast upon the waters of philo- 
sophical speculation, to float hither and thither, with the 
ever-shifting waves of thought. And what does Philos- 
ophy gain ? Her just domains are narrowed, and her free 
limbs cramped in their onward course. The problems 



Lect I. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 55 

which she has a native right to sift to the uttermost, are 
taken out of the field of free discussion, and fenced about 
with religious doctrines which it is heresy to call in ques- 
tion. Neither Christian truth nor philosophical inquiry can 
be advanced by such a system as this, which revives and 
sanctifies, as essential to the Catholic Faith, the forgotten 
follies of Scholastic Realism, and endangers the cause 
of religion, by seeking to explain its greatest mysteries 
by the lifeless forms of a worn-out controversy. " Why 
seek ye the living among the dead? Christ is not here." 1 

But if the tendency of Dogmatism is to endanger the 
interests of religious truth, by placing that which is divine 
and unquestionable in too close an alliance with that which 
is human and doubtful, Rationalism, on the other hand, 
tends to destroy revealed religion altogether, by oblit- 
erating the whole distinction between the human and the 
divine. Rationalism, if it retains any portion of revealed 
truth as such, does so, not in consequence of, but in defi- 
ance of, its fundamental principle. It does so by virtually 
declaring that it will follow reason up to a certain point, 
and no further ; though the conclusions which lie beyond 
that point are guaranteed by precisely the same evidence 
as those which fall short of it. We may select a notable 
example from the writings of a great thinker, who has 
contributed, perhaps, more than any other person to give 
a jDhilosophical sanction to the rationalizing theories of 
his countrymen, yet from whose speculative principles, 
rightly employed, might be extracted the best antidote 
to his own conclusions, even as the body of the scorpion, 
crushed upon the wound, is said to be the best cure for 
its own venom. 

Kant's theory of a rational religion is based upon the 

1 St. Luke xxiv. 0, 6. 



56 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. I. 

assumption that the sole purpose of religion must be to 
give a divine sanction to man's moral duties.* 18 ) He 
maintains that there can be no duties towards God, dis- 
tinct from those which we owe towards men; but that 
it may be necessary, at certain times and for certain per- 
sons, to give to moral duties the authority of divine com- 
mands^ 19 ) Let us hear then the philosopher's rational 
explanation, upon this assumption, of the duty of Prayer. 
It is a mere superstitious delusion, he tells us, to consider 
prayer as a service addressed to God, and as a means of 
obtaining His favor. ( 2 °) The true purpose of the act 
is not to alter or affect in any way God's relation towards 
us; but only to quicken our own moral sentiments, by 
keeping alive within us the idea of God as a moral 
Lawgiver. ( 21 ) He, therefore, neither admits the duty un- 
conditionally, nor rejects it entirely; but leaves it optional 
with men to adopt that or any other means, by which, 
in their own particular case, this moral end may be best 
promoted; — as if any moral benefit could possibly ac- 
crue from the habitual exercise of an act of conscious self- 
deception. 

The origin of such theories is of course to be traced to 
that morbid horror of what they are pleased to call Anthro- 
pomorphism, which poisons the speculations of so many 
modern philosophers, when they attempt to be wise above 
what is written, and seek for a metaphysical exposition of 
God's nature and attributes. ( 22 ) They may not, forsooth, 
think of the unchangeable God as if He were their fellow 
man, influenced by human motives, and moved by human 
supplications. They want a truer, a juster idea of the 
Deity as He is, than that under which He has been pleased 
to reveal Himself; and they call on their reason to furnish 
it. Fools, to dream that man can escape from himself, that 



LECT. I. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 57 

human reason can draw aught but a human portrait of 
God ! They do but substitute a marred and mutilated 
humanity for one exalted and entire : they add nothing 
to their conception of God as He is, but only take away 
a part of their conception of man. Sympathy, and love, 
and fatherly kindness, and forgiving mercy, have evapo- 
rated in the crucible of their philosophy; and what is the 
caput mortuum that remains, but only the sterner features 
of humanity exhibited in repulsive nakedness ? The God 
who listens to prayer, we are told, appears in the likeness 
of human mutability. Be it so. What is the God who 
does not listen, but the likeness of human obstinacy ? Do 
we ascribe to him a fixed purpose ? our conception of a 
purpose is human. Do we speak of Him as continuing 
unchanged? our conception of continuance is human. Do 
we conceive Him as knowing and determining ? what are 
knowledge and determination but modes of human con- 
sciousness ? and what know we of consciousness itself, 
but as the contrast between successive mental states ? 
But our rational philosopher stops short in the middle 
of his reasoning. He strips off from humanity just so 
much as suits his purpose ; — " and the residue thereof 
he m-aketh a god ; 'V 1 — less pious in his idolatry than the 
carver of the graven image, in that he does not fall down 
unto it and pray unto it, but is content to stand off and 
reason concerning it. And why does he retain any con- 
ception of God at all, but that he retains some portions of 
an imperfect humanity? Man is still the residue that is 
left ; deprived indeed of all that is amiable in humanity, 
but, in the darker features which remain, still man. Man 
in his purposes ; man in his inflexibility ; man in that re- 
lation to time from which no philosophy, whatever its pre- 

1 Isaiah xliv. 17. 



58 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. I. 

tensions, can wholly free itself; pursuing with indomitable 
resolution a preconceived design ; deaf to the yearning 
instincts which compel his creatures to call upon him. ( 2S ) 
Yet this, forsooth, is a philosophical conception of the 
Deity, more worthy of an enlightened reason than the 
human imagery of the Psalmist : " The eyes of the Lord 
are over the righteous, and His ears are open unto their 
prayers." * 

Surely downright idolatry is better than this rational 
worship of a fragment of humanity. Better is the super- 
stition which sees the image of God in the wonderful 
whole which God has fashioned, than the philosophy 
which would carve for itself a Deity out of the remnant 
which man has mutilated. Better to realize the satire of 
the Eleatic philosopher, to make God in the likeness of 
man, even as the ox or the horse might conceive gods 
in the form of oxen or horses, than to adore some half- 
hewn Hermes, the head of a man joined to a misshapen 
block. ( 24 ) Better to fall down before that marvellous com- 
pound of human consciousness whose elements God has 
joined together, and no man can put asunder, than to strip 
reason of those cognate elements which together furnish 
all that we can conceive or imagine of conscious or per- 
sonal existence, and to deify the emptiest of all abstrac- 
tions, a something or a nothing, with just enough of its 
human original left to form a theme for the disputations 
of philosophy, but not enough to furnish a single ground 
of appeal to the human feelings of love, of reverence, and 
of fear. Unmixed idolatry is more religious than this. 
Undisguised atheism is more logical. 

Throughout every page of Holy Scripture God reveals 
himself, not as a Law, but as a Person. Throughout the 

i Psalm xxx iv. 15. 



Lect. I. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 59 

breadth and height and depth of human consciousness, 
Personality manifests itself under one condition, that of a 
Free Will, influenced, though not coerced, by motives. 
And to this consciousness God addresses Himself, when he 
adopts its attributes as the image under which to represent 
to man His own incomprehensible and ineffable nature. 
Doubtless in this there is much of accommodation to the 
weakness of man's faculties; but not more than in any 
other representation of any of the divine attributes. By 
what right do Ave say that the conception of the God who 
hears and answers prayer 1 is an accommodation, while that 
of Him in whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning 2 
is not so ? By w T hat right do we venture to rob the Deity 
of half His revealed attributes, in order to set up the other 
half, which rests on precisely the same evidence, as a more 
absolute revelation of the truth ? By what right do we 
enthrone, in the place of the God to whom we pray, ah 
inexorable Fate or immutable Law? — a thing with less 
than even the divinity of a Fetish ; since that may be at 
least conceived by its worshipper as capable of being 
offended by his crimes and propitiated by his supplica- 
tions ? 

Yet surely there is a principle of truth of which this 
philosophy is the perversion. Surely there is a sense in 
which we may not think of God as though He were man ; 
as there is also a sense in which we cannot help so thinking 
of Him. When we read in the same narrative, and almost 
in two consecutive verses of Scripture, " The Strength of 
Israel will not lie nor repent ; for He is not a man that He 
should repent;" and again, "The Lord repented that He 
had made Saul king over Israel : " 3 we are imperfectly con- 

1 Psalm lxv. 2; St. James v. 16. 2 St. James i. 17. 3 i Sam. xv. 29, 35. 



60 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. I. 

scions of an appeal to two different principles of represen- 
tation, involving opposite sides of the same truth ; we feel 
that there is a true foundation for the system which denies 
human attributes to God ; though the superstructure, which 
has been raised upon it, logically involves the denial of His 
very existence. 

"What limits then can we find to determine the legiti- 
mate provinces of these two opposite methods of religious 
thought, each of which, in its exclusive employment, leads 
to errors so fatal ; yet each of which, in its utmost error, 
is but a truth abused ? If we may not, with the Dogma- 
tist, force Philosophy into unnatural union with Revelation, 
nor yet, with the Rationalist, mutilate Revelation to make 
it agree with Philosophy, what guide can we find to point 
out the safe middle course ? what common element of both 
systems can be employed to mediate between them? It is 
obvious that no such element can be found by the mere 
contemplation of the objects on which religious thought 
is exercised. We can adequately criticize that only which 
we know as a whole. The objects of Natural Religion 
are known to us in and by the ideas which we can form 
of them; and those ideas do not of themselves constitute 
a whole, apart from the remaining phenomena of conscious- 
ness. We must not examine them by themselves alone : 
Ave must look to their origin, their import, and their rela- 
tion to the mind of which they are part. Revealed Relig- 
ion, again, is not by itself a direct object of criticism : first, 
because it is but a part of a larger scheme, and that scheme 
one imperfectly comprehended ; and secondly, because Rev- 
elation implies an accommodation to the mental constitu- 
tion of its human receiver ; and we must know what that 
constitution is, before we can pronounce how fir the accom- 
modation extends. But if partial knowledge must not be 



LECT. I. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 61 

treated as if it were complete, neither, on the other hand, 
may it be identified with total ignorance. The false humil- 
ity which assumes that it can know nothing, is often as 
dangerous as the false pride which assumes that it knows 
everything. The provinces of Reason and Faith, the limits 
of our knowledge and of our ignorance, must both be 
clearly determined : otherwise we may find ourselves dog- 
matically protesting against dogmatism, and reasoning to 
prove the worthlessness of reason. 

There is one point from which all religious systems must 
start, and to which all must finally return ; and which may 
therefore furnish a common ground on which to examine 
the principles and pretensions of all. The primary and 
proper object of criticism is not Religion, natural or re- 
vealed, but the hitman mind in its relation to Religion. If 
the Dogmatist and the Rationalist have heretofore con- 
tended as combatants, each beating the air in his own 
position, without being able to reach his adversary; if 
they have been prevented from taking up a common 
ground of controversy, because each repudiates the fun- 
damental assumptions of the other ; that common ground 
must be sought in another quarter ; namely, in those laws 
and processes of the human mind, by means of which both 
alike accept and elaborate their opposite systems. If hu- 
man philosophy is not a direct guide to the attainment of 
religious truth (and its entire history too truly testifies 
that it is not), may it not serve as an indirect guide, by 
pointing out the limits of our faculties, and the conditions 
of their legitimate exercise? Witnessing, as it does, the 
melancholy spectacle of the household of humanity divided 
against itself, the reason against the feelings and the feel- 
ings against the reason, and the dim half-consciousness of 
the shadow of the infinite frowning down upon both, may 

6 



62 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. I. 

it not seek, with the heathen Philosopher of old, to find 
the reconciling and regulating principle in that justice, of 
which the essential character is, that every member of the 
system shall do his own duty, and forbear to intrude into 
the office of his neighbor ? ( 25 ) 

A criticism of the human mind, in relation to religious 
truth, was one of the many unrealized possibilities of phfc 
losophy, sketched out in anticipation by the far-seeing ge- 
nius of Bacon. "Here therefore," he writes, "I note this 
deficiency, that there hath not been, to my understanding, 
sufficiently enquired and handled the true limits and use 
of reason in spiritual things, as a kind of divine dialectic : 
which for that it is not done, it seemeth to me a thing 
usual, by pretext of true conceiving that which is revealed, 
to search and mine into that which is not revealed ; and by 
pretext of enucleating inferences and contradictories, to 
examine that which is positive : the one sort falling into 
the error of JSTicodemus, demanding to have things made 
more sensible than it pleaseth God to reveal them, i Quo- 
modo possit homo nasci cum sit senex ? ' the other sort into 
the error of the disciples, which were scandalized at a show 
of contradiction, ' Quid est hoc quod dicit nobis, Modicum, 
et non videbitis me; et iterum, modicum, et videbitis 
me?'" ( 26 ) 

An examination of the Limits of Religious Thought is 
an indispensable preliminary to all Religious Philosophy. 
And the limits of religious thought are but a special mani- 
festation of the limits of thought in general. Thus the 
Philosophy of Religion, on its human side, must be subject 
to those universal conditions which are binding upon Phi- 
losophy in general. It has ever fared ill, both with Philos- 
ophy and with Religion, when this caution has been 
neglected. It was an evil hour for both, when Fichte 



Lect. I. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 63 

made his first essay, as a disciple of the Kantian school, by 
an attempted criticism of all Revelation. C 27 ) The very 
title of Kant's great work, and, in spite of many inconsis- 
tencies, the general spirit of its contents also, might have 
taught him a different lesson, — might have shown him 
that Reason, and not Revelation, was the primary object 
of criticism. If Revelation is a communication from an infi- 
nite to a finite intelligence, the conditions of a criticism of 
Revelation on philosophical grounds must be identical with 
those which are required for constructing a Philosophy of 
the Infinite. For Revelation can make known the Infinite 
Being only in one of two ways; by presentiyig him as he 
is, or by representing him under symbols more or less ade- 
quate. A presentative Revelation implies faculties in man 
which can receive the presentation ; and such faculties will 
also furnish the conditions of constructing a philosophical 
theory of the object presented. If, on the other hand. 
Revelation is merely representative, the accuracy of the 
representation can only be ascertained by a knowledge of 
the object represented ; and this again implies the possi- 
bility of a philosophy of the Infinite. Whatever impedi- 
ments, therefore, exist to prevent the formation of such a 
philosophy, the same imjDediments must likewise prevent 
the accomplishment of a complete criticism of Revelation. 
Whatever difficulties or contradictions are involved in the 
philosophical idea of the Infinite, the same or similar ones 
must naturally be expected in the corresponding ideas 
which Revelation either exhibits or implies. And if an 
examination of the problems of Philosophy and the condi- 
tions of their solution should compel us to admit the exist- 
ence of principles and modes of thought which must be 
accepted as true in practice, though they cannot be 
explained in theory; the same practical acceptance maybe 



64 LIMITS OF BELIGIOUS Lect. I. 

claimed, on philosophical grounds, in behalf of the corre- 
sponding doctrines of Revelation. 

If it can be shown that the limits of religious and phi- 
losophical thought are the same ; that corresponding diffi- 
culties occur in both, and, from the nature of the case, 
must occur, the chief foundation of religious Rationalism 
is cut away from under it. The difficulties which it pro- 
fesses to find in Revelation are shown to be not peculiar to 
Revelation, but inherent in the constitution of the human 
mind, and such as no system of Rationalism can avoid or 
overcome. The analogy, which Bishop Butler has pointed 
out, between Religion and the constitution and course of 
Nature, may be in some degree extended to the constitu- 
tion and processes of the human mind. The representa- 
tions of God which Scripture presents to us may be shown 
to be analogous to those which the laws of our minds 
require us to form ; and therefore such as may naturally be 
supposed to have emanated from the same author. Such 
an inquiry occupies indeed but a subordinate place among 
the direct evidences of Christianity ; nor is it intended to 
usurp the place of those evidences. But indirectly it may 
have its use, in furnishing an answer to a class of object- 
ions which were very popular a few years ago, and are not 
yet entirely extinguished. Even if it does not contribute 
materially to strengthen the position occupied by the de- 
fenders of Christianity, it may serve to expose the weak- 
ness of the assailants. Human reason may, in some 
respects, be weak as a supporter of Religion ; but it is at 
least strong enough to repel an attack founded on the 
negation of reason. 

" We know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when 
that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part 
shall be done away. For now we see through a glass, 



Lect. I. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 65 

darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but 
then shall I know even as also I am known." 1 Such is the 
Apostle's declaration of the limits of human knowledge. 
" The logical conception is the absolute divine conception 
itself; and the logical process is the immediate exhibition 
of God's self-determination to Being." ( 28 ) Such is the 
Philosopher's declaration of the extent of human knowl- 
edge. On the first of these statements is founded the 
entire Theology of Scripture : on the second is founded 
the latest and most complete exposition of the Theology 
of Rationalism. The one represents God, not as He is in 
the brightness of His own glory, dwelling in the light 
which no man can approach unto; 2 but as He is reflected 
faintly in broken and fitful rays, glancing back from the 
restless waters of the human soul. The other identifies 
the shadow with the substance, not even shrinking from 
the confession that, to know God as He is, man must 
himself be God. ( 29 ) It turns from the feeble image of 
God in the soul of the individual man, to seek the entire 
manifestation of Deity in the collective consciousness of 
mankind. "Ye shall be as gods," 3 was the earliest sugges- 
tion of the Tempter to the parents of the human race : 
" Ye are God," is the latest assurance of philosophy to the 
human race itself. ( 3 °) Revelation represents the infinite 
God under finite symbols, in condescension to the finite ca- 
pacity of man ; indicating at the same time the existence 
of a further reality beyond the symbol, and bidding us look 
forward in faith to the promise of a more perfect knowl- 
edge hereafter. Rationalism, in the hands of these exposi- 
tors, adopts an opposite view of man's powers and duties. 
It claims to behold God as He is now : it finds a common 
object for Religion and Philosophy in the explanation of 

i 1 Cor. xiii. 9, 10, 12. 2 i Tim. vi. 16. 3 Genesis iii. 5. 
G* 



66 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. I. 

God. ( 31 > It declares Religion to be the Divine Spirit's 
knowledge of himself through the mediation of the finite 
Spirit. ( 32 ) 

"Beloved, now are we the sons of God ; and it doth 
not yet appear what we shall be : but we know that, when 
He shall aj^pear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see 
Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in him 
purifieth himself, even as He is pure." 1 Philosophy too 
confesses that like must be known by like ; but, reversing 
the hope of the Apostle, it finds God in the forms of hu- 
man thought. Its kingdom is proclaimed to be Truth 
absolute and unveiled. It contains in itself the exhibition 
of God, as He is in His eternal essence, before the crea- 
tion of a finite world. ( 33 ) "Which of these two representa- 
tions contains the truer view of the capacities of human 
reason, it will be the purpose of the following Lectures to 
inquire. Such an inquiry must necessarily, during a por- 
tion at least of its course, assume a philosophical, rather 
than a theological aspect ; yet it will not perhaps on that 
account be less ultimately serviceable in theological contro- 
versy. It has been acutely said, that even if Philosophy is 
useless, it is still useful, as the means of proving its own 
uselessness. < 34 ) But it is not so much the utility as the 
necessity of the study, which constitutes its present claim 
on our attention. So long as man possesses facts of con- 
sciousness and powers of reflection, so long he will continue 
to exercise those powers and study those facts. So long as 
human consciousness contains the idea of a God and the 
instincts of worship, so long mental philosophy will walk 
on common ground with religious belief. Rightly or 
wrongly, men will think of these things ; and a knowledge 
of the laws under which they think is the only security for 

1 1 St. John iii. 2, 3. 



Lect. I. thought examined. 67 

thinking soundly. If it be thought no unworthy occupa- 
tion for the Christian preacher, to point out the evidences 
of God's Providence in the constitution of the sensible 
world and the mechanism of the human body ; or to dwell 
on the analogies which may be traced between the scheme 
of revelation and the course of nature ; it is but a part of 
the same argument to pursue the inquiry with regard to the 
structure and laws of the human mind. The path may be 
one which, of late years at least, has been less frequently 
trodden : the language indispensable to such an investiga- 
tion may sound at times unwonted and uncouth ; but the 
end is one with that of those plainer and more familiar 
illustrations which have taken their place among the ac- 
knowledged evidences of religion ; and the lesson of the 
whole, if read aright, will be but to teach us that in mind, 
no less than in body, we are fearfully and wonderfully 
made 1 by Him whose praise both alike declare : that He 
who "laid the foundations of the earth, and shut up the sea 
with doors, and said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no fur- 
ther," is also He who "hath put wisdom in the inward 
parts, and hath given understanding to the heart." 2 

1 Psalm cxxxix. 14. 2 Job xxxviii. 4, 8, 11, 36. 



LECTURE II. 



KEEP THAT WHICH IS COMMITTED TO THY TRUST, AVOIDING PRO- 
FANE AND TAIN BABBLINGS, AND OPPOSITIONS OP SCIENCE FALSELY 
SO CALLED,* WHICH SOME PROFESSING HAVE ERRED CONCERNING 
THE FAITH. — I TIMOTHY VI. 20,21. 



A Philosophy of Religion may be attempted from two 
opposite points of view, and by two opposite modes of de- 
velopment. It may be conceived either as a Philosophy 
of the Object of Religion ; that is to say, as a scientific 
exposition of the nature of God ; or as a Philosophy of the 
Subject of Religion ; that is to say, as a scientific inquiry 
into the constitution of the human mind, so far as it re- 
ceives and deals with religious ideas. The former is that 
branch of Metaphysics which is commonly known by the 
name of Rational Theology. Its general aim, in common 
with all metaphysical inquiries, is to disengage the real 
from the apparent, the true from the false : its special aim, 
as a Theology, is to exhibit a true representation of the 
Nature and Attributes of God, purified from foreign accre- 
tions, and displaying the exact features of their Divine 
Original. The latter is a branch of Psychology, which at 
its outset at least, contents itself with investigating the 
phenomena presented to it, leaving their relation to further 
realities to be determined at a later stage of the inquiry. 
Its primary concern is with the operations and laws of the 
human mind; and its special purpose is to ascertain the 
nature, the origin, and the limits of the religious element 



Lect. II. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 69 

in man ; postponing, till after that question has been de- 
cided, the further inquiry into the absolute nature of God. 

As applied to the criticism of Revelation, the first 
method, supposing its end to be attained, would furnish an 
immediate and direct criterion by which the claims of any 
supposed Revelation to a divine origin might be tested; 
while at the same time it would enable those possessed of 
it to dispense with the services of any Revelation at all. 
For on the supposition that we possess an exact idea of any 
attribute of the Divine Nature, we are at liberty to reject 
at once any portion of the supposed Revelation which con- 
tradicts that idea ; and on the supposition that we possess 
a complete idea of that Nature as a w r hole, we are at liberty 
to reject whatever goes beyond it. And as, upon either 
supposition, the highest praise to which Revelation can as- 
pire is that of coinciding, partially or wholly, with the in- 
dependent conclusions of Philosophy, it follows that, so far 
as Philosophy extends, Revelation becomes superfluous. M 
On the other hand, the second method of philosophical 
inquiry does not profess to furnish a direct criticism of 
Revelation, but only of the instruments by which Revela- 
tion is to be criticized. It looks to the human, not to the 
divine, and aspires to teach us no more than the limits of 
our own powers of thought, and the consequent distinction 
between what we may and what we may not seek to com- 
prehend. And if, upon examination, it should appear that 
any portion of the contents of Revelation belongs to the 
latter class of truths, this method will enable us to recon- 
cile with each other the conflicting claims of Reason and 
Faith, by showing that Reason itself, rightly interpreted, 
teaches the existence of truths that are above Reason. 

Whatever may be the ultimate use of the first of these 
methods of criticism, it is obvious that the previous ques- 



70 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS LecT. II. 

tion, concerning our right to use it at all, can only be sat- 
isfactorily answered by the employment of the second 
method. The possibility of criticism at all implies that 
human reason is liable to error : the possibility of a valid 
criticism implies that the means of distinguishing between 
its truth and its error may be ascertained by a previous 
criticism. Let it be granted, for the moment, that a relig- 
ion whose contents are irreconcilable with human reason is 
thereby proved not to have come from God, but from man, 
— still the reason which judges is at least as human as the 
religion which is judged ; and if the human representation 
of God is erroneous in the latter, how can we assume its 
infallibility in the former ? If we grant for the present the 
fundamental position of Rationalism, namely, that man by 
his own reason can attain to a right conception of God, 
we must at any rate grant also, what every attempt at 
criticism implies, that he may also attain to a wrong one. 
We have therefore still to ask by what marks the one is to 
be distinguished from the other; by what method we are 
to seek the truth ; and how we are to assume ourselves 
that we have found it. And to answer this question, we 
need a preliminary examination of the conditions and limits 
of human thought. Religious criticism is itself an act of 
thought ; and its immediate instruments must, under any 
circumstances, be thoughts also. We are thus compelled 
in the first instance to inquire into the origin and value of 
those thoughts themselves. 

A Philosophy which professes to elicit from its own 
conceptions all the essential portions of religious belief, is 
bound to justify its profession, by showing that those con- 
ceptions themselves are above suspicion. The ideas thus 
exalted to the supreme criteria of truth must bear on their 
front unquestionable evidence that they are true and suffi- 



Lect. II. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 71 

cient representations of the Divine Nature, such as may 
serve all the needs of human thought and human feeling, 
adequate alike for contemplation and for worship. They 
must manifest the clearness and distinctness which mark 
the strong vision of an eye gazing undazzled on the glory 
of Heaven, not the obscurity and confusion of one that 
turns away blinded from the glare, and gropes in its own 
darkness after the fleeting spectrum. The conviction 
which boasts itself to be superior to all external evidence 
must carry in its own inward constitution some sure indi- 
cation of its truth and value. 

Such a conviction may be possible in two different ways. 
It may be the result of a direct intuition of the Divine 
Nature ; or it may be gained by inference from certain 
attributes of human nature, which, though on a smaller 
scale, are known to be sufficiently representative of the 
corresponding properties of the Deity. We may suppose 
the existence in man of a special faculty of knowledge, of 
which God is the immediate object, — a kind of religious 
sense or reason, by which the Divine attributes are appre- 
hended in their own nature : ( 2 ) or we may maintain that 
the attributes of God differ from those of man in degree 
only, not in kind; and hence that certain mental and 
moral qualities, of which we are immediately conscious in 
ourselves, furnish at the same time a true and adequate 
image of the infinite perfections of God. ( 3 ) The first of 
these suppositions professes to convey a knowledge of 
God by direct apprehension, in a manner similar to the 
evidence of the senses: the second professes to convey 
the same knowledge by a logical process, similar to the 
demonstrations of science. The former is the method of 
Mysticism, and of that Rationalism which agrees with 
Mysticism, in referring the knowledge of divine things to 



72 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. II. 

an extraordinary and abnormal process of intuition or 
thought. ( 4 ) The latter is the method of the vulgar Ra- 
tionalism, which regards the reason of man, in its ordinary 
and normal operation, as the supreme criterion of religious 
truth. 

On the former supposition, a system of religious philos- 
ophy or criticism may be constructed by starting from the 
divine and reasoning down to the human : on the latter, 
by starting from the human and reasoning up to the divine. 
The first commences with a supposed immediate knowl- 
edge of God as He is in his absolute nature, and proceeds 
to exhibit the process by which that nature, acting accord- 
ing to its own laws, will manifest itself in operation, and 
become known to man. The second commences with an 
immediate knowledge of the mental and moral attributes 
of man, and proceeds to exhibit the manner in which those 
attributes will manifest themselves, when exalted to the 
degree in which they form part of the nature of God. 
If, for example, the two systems severally undertake to 
give a representation of the infinite power and wisdom of 
God, the former will profess to explain how the nature of 
the infinite manifests itself in the forms of power and wis- 
dom; while the latter will attempt to show how power 
and wisdom must manifest themselves when existing in 
an infinite degree. In their criticisms of Revelation, in 
like manner, the former will rather take as its standard 
that absolute and essential nature of God, which must 
remain unchanged in every manifestation ; the latter will 
judge by reference to those intellectual and moral qual- 
ities, which must exist in all their essential features in the 
divine nature as well as in the human. 

Thus, for example, it has been maintained by a modern 
philosopher, that the absolute nature of God is that of a 



Lect. II. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 73 

pure Will, determining itself solely by a moral law, and 
subject to no affections which can operate as motives. 
Hence it is inferred that the same law of action must form 
the rule of God's manifestation to mankind as a moral 
Governor; and therefore that no revelation can be of 
divine origin, which attempts to influence men's actions 
by the prospect of reward or punishment.* 5 ) In this 
mode of reasoning, an abstract conception of the nature 
of God is made the criterion to determine the mode in 
which He must reveal Himself to man. On the other 
hand, we meet with an opposite style of criticism, which 
reasons somewhat as follows : All the excellences, it con- 
tends, of which we are conscious in the creature, must 
necessarily exist in the same manner, though in a higher 
degree, in the Creator. God is indeed more wise, more 
just, more merciful than man ; but for that very reason, 
His wisdom and justice and mercy must contain nothing 
that is incompatible with the corresponding attributes in 
their human character.* 6 ) Hence, if the certainty of 
man's knowledge implies the necessity of the events 
which he knows, the certainty of God's omniscience im- 
plies a like necessity of all things:* 7 ) if man's justice 
requires that he should punish the guilty alone, it is incon- 
sistent with God's justice to inflict the chastisement of sin 
upon the innocent:* 8 ) if man's mercy finds its natural 
exercise in the free forgiveness of offences, God's mer- 
cy, too, must freely forgive the sins of His creatures.* 9 ) 
From the same premises it is consistently concluded that 
no act which would be wrong, if performed by a man 
upon his own responsibility, can be justified by the plea 
of a direct command from God.* 10 ) Abraham may not 
be praised for his readiness to slay his son in obedience to 
God's command ; for the internal prohibition must always 

7 



74 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. II. 

be more certain than the external precept. ( u > Joshua 
cannot be warranted in obeying the Divine injunction to 
exterminate the Canaanites, unless he would be equally 
warranted in destroying them of his own accord. < 12 ) And, 
as the issuing of such commands is contrary to the moral 
nature of God, therefore the Book which represents them 
as so issued is convicted of falsehood, and cannot be re- 
garded as a Divine Revelation. ( 13 ) In this mode of rea- 
soning, the moral or intellectual nature of man is made 
the rule to determine what ought to be the revealed attri- 
butes of God, and in what manner they must be exercised. 
Within certain limits, both these arguments may have 
their value ; but each is chiefly useful as a check upon the 
exclusive authority of the other. The philosophy which 
reasons downwards from the infinite, is but an exaggera- 
tion of the true conviction that God's thoughts are not 
our thoughts, nor His ways our ways : * the philosophy 
which reasons upwards from the human, bears witness, 
even in its perversion, to the unextinguishable conscious- 
ness, that man, however fallen, was created in the image 
of God. 2 But this admission tends rather to weaken than 
to strengthen the claims of either to be received as the 
supreme criterion of religious truth. The criticisms of 
rationalism exhibit the weakness as well as the strength 
of reason ; for the representations which it rejects, as dis- 
honoring to God, are, on its own showing, the product of 
human thought, no less than the principle by which they 
are judged and condemned. If the human mind has 
passed through successive stages of religious cultivation, 
from the grovelling superstition of the savage to the intel- 
lectual elevation of the critic of all possible revelations, 
who shall assure the critic that the level on which he now 

1 Isaiah lv. 8. 2 Genesis i. 27. 



Lect. II. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 75 

stands is the last and highest that can be attained? If 
reason is to be the last court of appeal in religious ques- 
tions, it must find some better proof of its own infalli- 
bility than is to be found in its own progressive enlighten- 
ment. Its preeminence must be shown, not by successive 
approximations to the truth, but by the possession of the 
truth itself. Of the limits within which reason may be 
legitimately employed, I shall have occasion to speak 
hereafter. At present, I am concerned only with its pre- 
tensions to such a knowledge of the Divine Nature, as 
can constitute the foundation of a Rational Theology. 

There are three terms, familiar as household words, in 
the vocabulary of Philosophy, which must be taken into 
account in every system of Metaphysical Theology. To 
conceive the Deity as He is, we must conceive Him as 
First Cause, as Absolute, and as Infinite. By the First 
Cause, is meant that which produces all things, and is 
itself produced of none. By the Absolute, is meant that 
which exists in and by itself, having no necessary relation 
to any other Being. ( 14 ) By the Infinite, is meant that 
which is free from all possible limitation ; that than wmich 
a greater is inconceivable; and which, consequently, can 
receive no additional attribute or mode of existence, which 
it had not from all eternity. 

The Infinite, as contemplated by this philosophy, can- 
not be regarded as consisting of a limited number of attri- 
butes, each unlimited in its kind. It cannot be conceived, 
for example, after the analogy of a line, infinite in length, 
but not in breadth ; or of a surface, infinite in two dimen- 
sions of space, but bounded in the third ; or of an intel- 
ligent being, possessing some one or more modes of con- 
sciousness in an infinite degree, but devoid of others. 
Even if it be granted, which is not the case, that such a 



70 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. II. 

partial infinite may without contradiction be conceived, 
still it will have a relative infinity only, and be altogether 
incompatible with the idea of the Absolute. ( 15 ) The 
line limited in breadth is thereby necessarily related to 
the space that limits it : the intelligence endowed with a 
limited number of attributes, coexists with others which 
are thereby related to it, as cognate or opposite modes of 
consciousness. ( 16 > The metaphysical representation of the 
Deity, as absolute and infinite, must necessarily, as the 
profoundest metaphysicians have acknowledged, amount 
to nothing less than the sum of all reality. ( 1T ) " What 
kind of an Absolute Being is that," says Hegel, " which 
does not contain in itself all that is actual, even evil 
included ?"( 18 ) We may repudiate the conclusion with 
indignation ; but the reasoning is unassailable. If the 
Absolute and Infinite is an object of human conception 
at all, this, and none other, is the conception required. 
That which is conceived as absolute and infinite must be 
conceived as containing within itself the sum, not only of 
all actual, but of all possible, modes of being. For if any 
actual mode can be denied of it, it is related to that mode, 
and limited by it ; ( 19 ) and if any possible mode can be 
denied of it, it is capable of becoming more than it now 
is, and such a capability is a limitation. Indeed, it is obvi- 
ous that the entire distinction between the possible and 
the actual can have no existence as regards the absolutelv 
infinite ; for an unrealized possibility is necessarily a rela- 
tion and a limit. The scholastic saying, Dens est actus 
purus^) ridiculed as it has been by modern critics, is 
in truth but the expression, in technical language, of the 
almost unanimous voice of philosophy, both in earlier and 
later times. < 21 ) 

But these three conceptions, the Cause, the Absolute, 



Lect. II. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 77 

the Infinite, all equally indispensable, do they not imply 
contradiction to each other, when viewed in conjunction, 
as attributes of one and the same Being ? A Cause can- 
not, as such, be absolute : the Absolute cannot, as such, be 
a cause. The cause, as such, exists only in relation to its 
effect : the cause is a cause of the effect ; the effect is an 
effect of the cause. On the other hand, the conception 
of the Absolute inxplies a possible existence out of all rela- 
tion, ( 22 ) We attempt to escape from this apparent con- 
tradiction, by introducing the idea of succession in time. 
The Absolute exists first by itself, and afterwards becomes 
a Cause. But here we are checked by the third concep- 
tion, that of the Infinite. How can the Infinite become 
that which it was not from the first? If Causation is a 
possible mode of existence, that which exists without 
causing is not infinite; that which becomes a cause has 
passed beyond its former limits. Creation at any particu- 
lar moment of time being thus inconceivable, the philoso- 
pher is reduced to the alternative of Pantheism, which 
pronounces the effect to be mere appearance, and merges 
all real existence in the caused 23 ) The validity of this 
alternative will be examined presently. 

Meanwhile, to return for a moment to the supposition 
of a true causation. Supposing the Absolute to become 
a cause, it will follow that it operates by means of free 
will and consciousness. For a necessary cause cannot. be 
conceived as absolute and infinite. If necessitated by 
something beyond itself, it is thereby limited by a supe- 
rior power ; and if necessitated by itself, it has in its own 
nature a necessary relation to its effect. The act of causa- 
tion must, therefore, be voluntary; and volition is only 
possible in a conscious being. But consciousness, again, 
is only conceivable as a relation. There must be a con- 



78 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. II. 

scions subject, and an object of which he is conscious. 
The subject is a subject to the object; the object is an 
object to the subject; and neither can exist by itself as 
the absolute. This difficulty, again, may be for the mo- 
ment evaded, by distinguishing between the absolute as 
related to another, and the absolute as related to itself. 
The Absolute, it may be said, may possibly be conscious, 
provided it is only conscious of itself. < 24 ) But this alter- 
native is, in ultimate analysis, no less self-destructive than 
the other. For the object of consciousness, whether a 
mode of the subject's existence or not, is either created 
in and by the act of consciousness, or has an existence 
independent of it. In the former case, the object depends 
upon the subject, and the subject alone is the true abso- 
lute. In the latter case, the subject dejDends upon the 
object, and the object alone is the true absolute. Or, if 
we attempt a third hypothesis, and maintain that each 
exists independently of the other, we have no absolute at 
all, but only a pair of relatives ; for coexistence, whether 
in consciousness or not, is itself a relation. ( 25 ) 

The corollary from this reasoning is obvious. Not only 
is the Absolute, as conceived, incapable of a necessary re- 
lation to anything else ; but it is also incapable of contain- 
ing, by the constitution of its own nature, an essential re- 
lation within itself; as a whole, for instance, composed of 
parts, or as a substance consisting of attributes, or as a 
conscious subject in antithesis to an object. ( 26 > For if 
there is in the absolute any principle of unity, distinct 
from the mere accumulation of parts or attributes, this 
principle alone is the true absolute. If, on the other hand, 
there is no such principle, then there is no absolute at all, 
but only a plurality of relatives. < 27 ) The almost unani- 
mous voice of philosophy, in pronouncing that the absolute 



Lect. II. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 79 

is both one and simple, must be accepted as the voice of 
reason also, so far as reason has any voice in the matter. < 28 ) 
But this absolute unity, as indifferent and containing no 
attributes, can neither be distinguished from the multiplic- 
ity of finite beings by any characteristic feature, nor be 
identified with them in their multiplicity.^ 9 ) Thus we 
are landed in an inextricable dilemma. The Absolute 
cannot be conceived as conscious, neither can it be con- 
ceived as unconscious : it cannot be conceived as com- 
plex, neither can it be conceived as simple : it cannot be 
conceived by difference, neither can it be conceived by the 
absence of difference : it cannot be identified with the uni- 
verse, neither can it be distinguished from it. The One 
and the Many, regarded as the beginning of existence, are 
thus alike incomprehensible. 

The fundamental conceptions of Rational Theology be- 
ing thus self-destructive, we may naturally expect to find 
the same antagonism manifested in their special applica- 
tions. These naturally inherit the infirmities of the prin- 
ciple from which they spring. If an absolute and infinite 
consciousness is a conception which contradicts itself, we 
need not wonder if its several modifications mutually ex- 
clude each other. A mental attribute, to be conceived as 
infinite, must be in actual exercise on every possible ob- 
ject : otherwise it is potential only with regard to those 
on which it is not exercised ; and an unrealized potenti- 
ality is a limitation. Hence every infinite mode of con- 
sciousness must be regarded as extending over the field of 
every other ; and their common action involves a perpetual 
antagonism. How, for example, can Infinite Power be 
able to do all things, and yet Infinite Goodness be unable 
to do evil? How can infinite Justice exact the utmost 
penalty for every sin, and yet Infinite Mercy pardon the 



80 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. II. 

sinner ? How can Infinite Wisdom know all that is to 
come, and yet Infinite Freedom be at liberty to do or 
to forbear ?( 3 °) How is the existence of Evil compatible 
with that of an infinitely perfect Being ; for if he wills it, 
he is not infinitely good ; and if he wills it not, his w T ill is 
thwarted and his sphere of action limited ? Here, again, 
the Pantheist is ready with his solution. There is in re- 
ality no such thing as evil: there is no such thing as pun- 
ishment : there is no real relation between God and man 
at all. God is all that really exists : He does, by the ne- 
cessity of His nature, all that is done : all acts are equally 
necessary and equally divine: all diversity is but a dis- 
torted representation of unity: all evil is but a delusive 
appearance of good. ( 31 ) Unfortunately, the Pantheist does 
not tell us* whence all this delusion derives its seeming 
existence. 

Let us however suppose for an instant that these diffi- 
culties are surmounted, and the existence of the Absolute 
securely established on the testimony of reason. Still we 
have not succeeded in reconciling this idea with that of a 
Cause : we have done nothing towards explaining how the 
absolute can give rise to the relative, the infinite to the 
finite. If the condition of causal activity is a higher state 
than that of quiescence, the absolute, whether acting vol- 
untarily or involuntarily, has passed from a condition of 
comparative imperfection to one of comparative perfec- 
tion ; and therefore was not originally perfect. If the 
state of activity is an inferior state to that of quiescence, 
the Absolute, in becoming a cause, has lost its original per- 
fection^ 32 ) There remains only the supposition that the 
two states are equal, and the act of creation one of com- 
plete indifference. But this supposition annihilates the 
unity of the absolute, or it annihilates itself. If the act of 



LECT. II. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 81 

creation is real, and yet indifferent, we must admit the 
possibility of two conceptions of the absolute, the one as 
productive, the other as non-productive. If the act is not 
real, the supposition itself vanishes, and we are thrown 
once more on the alternative of Pantheism. 

Again, how can the Relative be conceived as coming into 
being ? If it is a distinct reality from the absolute, it must 
be conceived as passing from non-existence into existence. 
But to conceive an object as non-existent, is again a self- 
contradiction ; for that which is conceived exists, as an 
object of thought, in and by that conception. We may 
abstain from thinking of an object at all; but, if we think 
of it, we cannot but think of it as existing. It is possible 
at one time not to think of an object at all, and at another 
to think of it as already in being ; but to think of it in the 
act of becoming, in the progress from not being into being, 
is to think that which, in the very thought, annihilates 
itself. Here again the Pantheistic hypothesis seems forced 
upon us. We can think of creation only as a change in 
the condition of that which already exists ; and thus the 
creature is conceivable only as a phenomenal mode of the 
being of the Creator. < 33 ) 

The whole of this web of contradictions (and it might 
be extended, if necessary, to a far greater length) is woven 
from one original warp and woof ; — namely, the impossi- 
bility of conceiving the coexistence of the infinite and the 
finite, and the cognate impossibility of conceiving a first 
commencement of phenomena, or the absolute giving birth 
to the relative. The laws of thought appear to admit of 
no possible escape from the meshes in which thought is 
entangled, save by destroying one or the other of the cords 
of which they are composed. Pantheism or Atheism are 



82 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. II. 

thus the alternatives offered to us, according as we prefer 
to save the infinite by the sacrifice of the finite, or to main- 
tain the finite by denying the existence of the infinite. 
Pantheism thus presents itself, as to all appearance the only 
logical conclusion, if we believe in the possibility of a Phi- 
losophy of the Infinite. But Pantheism, if it avoids self- 
contradiction in the course of its reasonings, does so only 
by an act of suicide at the outset. It escapes from some 
of the minor incongruities of thought, only by the annihi- 
lation of thought and thinker alike. It is saved from the 
necessity of demonstrating its own falsehood, by abolish- 
ing the only conditions under which truth and falsehood 
can be distinguished from each other. The only concep- 
tion which I can frame of substantive existence at all, as 
distinguished from the transient accidents which are merely 
modes of the being of something else, is derived from the 
immediate knowledge of my own personal unity, amidst 
the various affections which form the successive modes 
of my consciousness. The Pantheist tells me that this 
knowledge is a delusion; that I am no substance, but a 
mode of the absolute substance, even as my thoughts and 
passions are modes of me ; and that in order to attain 
to a true philosophy of being, I must begin by denying 
my own being. And for what purpose is this act of self- 
destruction needed? In order to preserve inviolate cer- 
tain philosophical conclusions, which I, the non-existent 
thinker, have drawn by virtue of my non-existent powers 
of thought. But if my personal existence, the great pri- 
mary fact of all consciousness, is a delusion, what claim 
have the reasonings of the Pantheist himself to be consid- 
ered as anything better than a part of the universal false- 
hood? If I am mistaken in supposing myself to have a 
substantial existence at all, why is that existence more true 



LECT. II. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 83 

when it is presented to me under the particular form of 
apprehending and accepting the arguments of the panthe- 
istic philosophy ? Nay, how do I know that there is any 
argument at all ? For if my consciousness is mistaken in 
testifying to the fact of my own existence, it may surely 
be no less mistaken in testifying to my apparent apprehen- 
sion of an apparent reasoning. Nay, the very arguments 
which appear to prove the Pantheist's conclusion to be 
true, may in reality, for aught I know, prove it to be false. 
Or rather, no Pantheist, if he is consistent with himself, 
can admit the existence of a distinction between truth and 
falsehood at all. For if God alone exists, in whatever way 
that existence may be explained, He alone is the immedi- 
ate cause of all that takes place. He thinks all that is 
thought, He does all that is done. There can be no differ- 
ence between truth and falsehood; for God is the only 
thinker ; and all thoughts are equally necessary and equally 
divine. There can be no difference between right and 
wrong ; for God is the only agent ; and all acts are equally 
necessary and equally divine. ( 84 ) How error and evil, 
even in appearance, are possible, — how the finite and the 
relative can appear to exist, even as a delusion, — is a prob- 
lem which no system of Pantheism has made the slightest 
approach towards solving. ( 85 ) 

Pantheism thus failing us, the last resource of Ration- 
alism is to take refuge in that which, with reference to the 
highest idea of God, is speculative Atheism, and to deny 
that the Infinite exists at all. < 36 ) And it must be admit- 
ted that, so long as we confine ourselves to one side only 
of the problem, that of the inconceivability of the Infinite, 
this is the only position logically tenable by those who 
would make man's power of thought the exact measure of 
his duty of belief. For the infinite, as inconceivable, is 



84 LIMITS OE RELIGIOUS Lect. II. 

necessarily shown to be non-existent ; unless we renounce 
the claim of reason to supreme authority in matters of faith, 
by admitting that it is our duty to believe what we are 
altogether unable to comprehend. But the logical advan- 
tage of the atheistic alternative vanishes, as soon as we 
view the question from the other side, and endeavor posi- 
tively to represent in thought the sum total of existence as 
a limited quantity. A limit is itself a relation ; and to con- 
ceive a limit as such, is virtually to acknowledge the exist- 
ence of a correlative on the other side of it. < 37 ) By a law 
of thought, the significance of which has perhaps not yet 
been fully investigated, it is impossible to conceive a finite 
object of any kind, without conceiving it as one out of 
many, — as related to other objects, coexistent and ante- 
cedent. A first moment of time, a first unit of space, a def- 
inite sum of all existence, are thus as inconceivable as the 
opposite 'suppositions of an infinity of each. ( 38 ) While 
it is impossible to represent in thought any object, except 
as finite, it is equally impossible to represent any finite 
object, or any aggregate of finite objects, as exhausting the 
universe of being. Thus the hypothesis which would 
annihilate the Infinite is itself shattered to pieces against 
the rock of the Absolute ; and we are involved in the self- 
contradictory assumption of a limited universe, which yet 
can neither contain a limit in itself, nor be limited by any- 
thing beyond itself. For if it contains a limit in itself, it is 
both limiting and limited, both beyond the limit, and 
within it ; and if it is limited by anything else, it is not the 
universe. ( 39 ) 

To sum up briefly this portion of my argument. The 
conception of the Absolute and Infinite, from whatever 
side we view it, appears encompassed with contradictions. 
There is a contradiction in supposing such an object to 



LECT II. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 85 

exist, whether alone or in conjunction with others; and 
there is a contradiction in supposing it not to exist. There 
is a contradiction in conceiving it as one ; and there is a 
contradiction in conceiving it as many. There is a contra- 
diction in conceiving it as personal ; and there is a contra- 
diction in conceiving it as impersonal. It cannot without 
contradiction be represented as active ; nor, without equal 
contradiction, be represented as inactive. It cannot be con- 
ceived as the sum of all existence ; nor yet can it be con- 
ceived as a part only of that sum. A contradiction thus 
thoroughgoing, while it sufficiently shows the impotence of 
human reason as an a priori judge of all truth, yet is not 
in itself inconsistent with any form of religious belief. For 
it tells with equal force against all belief and all unbelief, 
and therefore necessitates the conclusion that belief cannot 
be determined solely by reason. No conclusion can be 
drawn from it in favor of universal skepticism ; first, 
because universal skepticism equally destroys itself; and 
secondly, because the contradictions thus detected belong 
not to the use of reason in general, but only to its exer- 
cise on one particular object of thought. It may teach us 
that it is our duty, in some instances, to believe that which 
we cannot conceive; but it does not require us to disbe- 
lieve anything which we are capable of conceiving. 

What we have hitherto been examining, be it remem- 
bered, is not the nature of the Absolute in itself, but only 
our own conception of that nature. The distortions of 
the image reflected may arise only from the inequalities 
of the mirror reflecting it. And this consideration leads 
us naturally back to the second of the two methods of 
religious philosophy which were mentioned at the begin- 
ning of the present Lecture. If the attempt to grasp the 
absolute nature of the Divine Object of religious thought 



86 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. II. 

thus fails us on every side, we have no resource but to 
recommence our inquiry by the opposite process, that of 
investigating the nature of the human Subject. Such an 
investigation will not, indeed, solve the contradictions 
which our previous attempt has elicited ; but it may serve 
to show us why they are insoluble. If it cannot satisfy to 
the full the demands of reason, it may at least enable us 
to lay a reasonable foundation for the rightful claims of 
belief. If, from an examination of the laws and limits of 
human consciousness, we can show that thought is not, 
and cannot be, the measure of existence ; if it can be 
shown that the contradictions which arise in the attempt 
to conceive the infinite, have their origin, not in the nature 
of that which we would conceive, but in the constitution 
of the mind conceiving ; that they are such as must nec- 
essarily accompany every form of religion, and every re- 
nunciation of religion ; w T e may thus prepare the way for a 
recognition of the separate provinces of Reason and Faith. 
This task I shall endeavor to accomplish in my next Lec- 
ture. Meanwhile, I would add but a few words, to point 
out the practical lesson to be drawn from our previous 
inquiry. It is this : that so far is human reason from being 
able to construct a scientific Theology, independent of 
and superior to Revelation, that it cannot even read the 
alphabet out of which that Theology must be framed. It 
has not been without much hesitation that I have ventured 
to address you in language seldom heard in this place, — 
to transport to the preacher's pulpit the vocabulary of 
metaphysical speculation. But it was only by such a 
course that I could hope to bring the antagonist princi- 
ples of true and false religious philosophy face to face 
with each other. It needs but a slight acquaintance with 
the history of opinions, to show how intimately, in various 



LECT. II. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 87 

ages, the current forms of religious belief or unbelief 
have been connected with the prevailing systems of spec- 
ulative philosophy. It was in no small degree because 
the philosophy of Kant identified religion with morality, 
and maintained that the supernatural and the historical 
were not necessary to belief ;< 4 °) that Paulus explained 
away the miracles of Christ, as misrepresentations of nat- 
ural events ; < 41 ) and Wegscheider claimed for the moral 
reason supreme authority in the interpretation of Scrip- 
ture ; < 42 ) and Rohr promulgated a new Creed, from which 
all the facts of Christianity are rejected, to make way for 
ethical precepts, f 43 ) It was in like manner because the 
philosophy of Hegel was felt to be incompatible with the 
belief in a personal God, and a personal Christ, and a 
supernatural revelation^ 44 ) that Vatke rejected the Old 
Testament history, as irreconcilable with the philosophi- 
cal law of religious development ; ( 45 ) and Strauss endeav- 
ored by minute cavils to invalidate the Gospel narrative, 
in order to make way for the theory of an ideal Christ, 
manifested in the whole human race;( 46 ) and Feuerbach 
maintained that the Supreme Being is but humanity dei- 
fied, and that the belief in a superhuman God is contra- 
dictory in itself, and pernicious in its consequences. ( 4 ~) 
And if, by wandering for a little while in the tangled 
mazes of metaphysical speculation, we can, test the worth 
of the substitute which this philosophy offers us in the 
place of the faith which it rejects; if Ave can show how 
little such a substitute can satisfy even the intellect of 
man (to the heart it does not pretend to appeal), the 
inquiry may do some service, slight and indirect though 
it be, to the cause of Christian Truth, by suggesting to 
the wavering disciple, ere he quits the Master with whom 
he has hitherto walked, the pregnant question of the 



OO LIMITS OF EELIGIOUS Lect. II. 

Apostle, " Lord, to whom shall we go ? " 2 When Phi- 
losophy succeeds in exhibiting in a clear and consistent 
form the Infinite Being of God; when her opposing schools 
are agreed among themselves as to the manner in which a 
knowledge of the Infinite takes place, or the marks by 
which it is to be discerned when known ; then, and not till 
then, may she claim to speak as one having authority in 
controversies of Faith. But while she speaks with stam- 
mering lips, and a double tongue ; while she gropes her 
way in darkness, and stumbles at every step ; while she 
has nothing to offer us but the alternative of principles 
which abjure consciousness, or a consciousness which con- 
tradicts itself, we may well pause before we appeal to her 
decisions as the gauge and measure of religious truth. 

In one respect, indeed, I have perhaps departed from 
the customary language of the pulpit, to a greater extent 
than was absolutely necessary ; — namely, in dealing with 
the ideas common to Theology and Metaphysics in the 
terms of the latter, rather than in those of the former. 
But there is a line of argument, in which the vague gen- 
eralities of the Absolute and the Infinite may be more 
reverently and appropriately employed than the sacred 
names and titles of God. For we almost instinctively 
shrink back from the recklessness which thrusts forward, 
on every occasion, the holiest names and things, to be 
tossed to and fro, and trampled under foot, in the excite- 
ment of controversy. We feel that the name of Him 
whom we worship may not lightly be held up as a riddle 
for prying curiosity to puzzle over : we feel that the Di- 
vine Personality of our Father in Heaven is not a thing 
to be pitted in the arena of disputation, against the lifeless 
abstractions and sophistical word-jugglings of Pantheism. 

i St. John vi. 68. 



Lect. II. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 89 

"We feel that, though God is indeed, in His incomprehen- 
sible Essence, absolute and infinite, it is not as the Abso- 
lute and Infinite that He appeals to the love and the fear 
and the reverence of His creatures. We feel that the life 
of religion lies in the human relations in which God re- 
veals Himself to man, not in the divine perfection which 
those relations veil and modify, though without wholly 
concealing. We feel' that the God to whom we pray, and 
in whom we trust, is not so much the God eternal and 
infinite, without body, parts, or passions (though we 
acknowledge that He is all these), as the God who is 
" gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kind- 
ness, and repenteth Him of the evil." 1 < 48 ) Those who 
have observed the prevailing character of certain schools 
of religious thought, in that country which, more than any 
other, has made Religion speak the language of Meta- 
physics; those who have observed how often, in modern 
literature, both at home and abroad, the most sacred 
names are played with, in familiar, almost in contemptuous 
intimacy, will need no other proof to convince them that 
we cannot attach too much importance to the duty of 
separating, as far as it can be effected, the language of 
prayer and praise from the definitions and distinctions of 
philosophy. 

The metaphysical difficulties which have been exhibited 
in the course of this Lecture almost suggest of themselves 
the manner in which they should be treated. We must 
begin with that which is within us, not with that which is 
above us ; with the philosophy of Man, not with that of 
God. Instead of asking, what are the facts and laws in 
the constitution of the universe, or in the Divine Nature, 
by virtue of which certain conceptions present certain 

i Joel ii. 13. 
8* 



90 LIMITS OE RELIGIOUS Lect. II. 

anomalies to the human mind, we should rather ask, what 
are the facts and laws in the constitution of the human 
mind, by virtue of which it finds itself involved in contra- 
dictions, whenever it ventures on certain courses of specu- 
lation. Philosophy, as well as Scripture, rightly employed, 
will teach a lesson of humility to its disciple ; exhibiting, 
as it does, the spectacle of a creature of finite intuitions, 
surrounded by partial indications of the Unlimited; of 
finite conceptions, in the midst of partial manifestations 
of the Incomprehensible. Questioned in this spirit, the 
voice of Philosophy will be but an echo of the inspired 
language of the Psalmist : " Thou hast beset me behind 
and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowl- 
edge is too wonderful for me : it is high ; I cannot attain 
unto it." l 

i Psalm cxxxix. 5, 6. 



LECTURE III. 

AND HE SAID, THOU CANST NOT SEE MY FACE; FOR THERE SHALL NO 
MAN SEE ME, AND LIVE. AND THE LORD SAID, BEHOLD, THERE IS 
A PLACE BY ME, AND THOU SHALT STAND UPON A ROCK I AND IT 
SHALL COME TO PASS, WHILE MY GLORY PASSETH BY, THAT I WILL 
PUT THEE IN A CLEFT OF THE ROCK, AND WILL COVER THEE WITH 
MY HAND WHILE I PASS BY : AND I WILL TAKE AWAY MINE HAND, 
AND THOU SHALT SEE MY BACK PARTS J BUT MY FACE SHALL NOT 
BE SEEN. — EXODUS XXXIII. 20-23. 

My last Lecture was chiefly occupied with an examina- 
tion of the ideas of the Absolute and the Infinite, — ideas 
which are indispensable to the foundation of a metaphys- 
ical Theology, and of which a clear and distinct conscious- 
ness must be acquired, if such a Theology is to exist at all. 
I attempted to show the inadequacy of these ideas for 
such a purpose, by reason of the contradictions which to 
our apprehension they necessarily involve from every 
point of view. The result of that attempt may be briefly 
summed up as follows. We are compelled, by the consti- 
tution of our minds, to believe in the existence of an Ab- 
solute and Infinite Being, — a belief which appears forced 
upon us, as the complement of our consciousness of the 
relative and the finite. But the instant we attempt to 
analyze the ideas thus suggested to us, in the hope of 
attaining to an intelligible conception of them, we are on 
every side involved in inextricable confusion and contra- 
diction. It is no matter from what point of view we com- 
mence our examination; — whether, with the Theist, we 



92 LIMITS OP RELIGIOUS Lect. III. 

admit the coexistence of the Infinite and the Finite, as 
distinct realities; or, with the Pantheist, deny the real 
existence of the Finite ; or, with the Atheist, deny the 
real existence of the Infinite ; — on each of these supposi- 
tions alike, our reason appears divided against itself, com- 
pelled to admit the truth of one hypothesis, and yet 
unable to overcome the apparent impossibilities of each. 
The philosophy of Rationalism, thus traced upwards to 
its highest principles, finds no legitimate resting-place, 
from which to commence its deduction of* religious con- 
sequences. 

In the present Lecture, it will be my endeavor to offer 
some explanation of the singular phenomenon of human 
thought, which is exhibited in these results. I propose to 
examine the same ideas of the Absolute and the Infinite 
from the opposite side, in order to see if any light can 
be thrown on the anomalies which they present to us, by 
a reference to the mental laws under which they are 
formed. Contradiction, whatever may be its ultimate 
import, is in itself not a quality of things, but a mode in 
which they are viewed by the mind; and the inquiry 
which it most immediately suggests is, not an investiga- 
tion of the nature of things in themselves, but an exam- 
ination of those mental conditions under which it is 
elicited in thought. Such an examination, if it does not 
enable us to extend the sphere of thought beyond a cer- 
tain point, may at least serve to make us more distinctly 
conscious of its true boundaries. 

The much-disputed question, to what class of mental 
phenomena the religious consciousness belongs, must be 
postponed to a later stage of our inquiry. At present, we 
are concerned with a more general investigation, which the 
answer to that question will in nowise affect. Whether 



LECT. III. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 93 

the relation of man to God be primarily presented to the 
human mind in the form of knowledge, or of feeling, or 
of practical impulse, it can be given only as a mode of 
consciousness, subject to those conditions under which 
alone consciousness is possible. Whatever knowledge is 
imparted, whatever impulse is communicated, whatever 
feeling is excited, in man's mind, must take place in a 
manner adapted to the constitution of its human recipient, 
and must exhibit such characteristics as the laws of that 
constitution impose upon it. A brief examination of the 
conditions of human consciousness in general will thus 
form a proper preliminary to any inquiry concerning the 
religious consciousness in particular. 

Now, in the first place, the very conception of Con- 
sciousness, in whatever mode it may be manifested, neces- 
sarily implies distinction between one object and another. 
To be conscious, we must be conscious of something; and 
that something can only be known as that which it is, by 
being distinguished from that which it is not. (*) But 
distinction is necessarily limitation; for, if one object is to 
be distinguished from another, it must possess some form 
of existence which the other has not, or it must not pos- 
sess some form which the other has. But it is obvious 
that the Infinite cannot be distinguished, as such, from the 
Finite, by the absence of any quality which the Finite 
possesses; for such absence would be a limitation. Nor 
yet can it be distinguished by the presence of an attribute 
which the Finite has not ; for, as no finite part can be a 
constituent of an infinite whole, this differential charac- 
teristic must itself be infinite ; and must at the same time 
have nothing in common with the finite. We are thus 
thrown back upon our former impossibility; for this sec- 
ond infinite will be distinguished from the finite by the 



94 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. III. 

absence of qualities which the latter possesses. A con- 
sciousness of the Infinite as such thus necessarily involves 
a self-contradiction; for it implies the recognition, by 
limitation and difference, of that which can only be given 
as unlimited and indifferent. ( 2 ) 

That man can be conscious of the Infinite, is thus a sup- 
position which, in the very terms in which it is expressed, 
annihilates itself. Consciousness is essentially a limita- 
tion ; for it is the determination of the mind to one ac- 
tual out of many possible modifications. But the Infinite, 
if it is to be conceived at all, must be conceived as poten- 
tially everything and actually nothing ; for if there is any- 
thing in general which it cannot become, it is thereby 
limited ; and if there is anything in particular which it 
actually is, it is thereby excluded from being any other 
thing. But again, it must also be conceived as actually 
everything and potentially nothing ; for an unrealized po- 
tentiality is likewise a limitation.^) If the infinite can be 
that which it is not, it is by that very possibility marked 
out as incomplete, and capable of a higher perfection. If 
it is actually everything, it possesses no characteristic fea- 
ture, by which it can be distinguished from anything else, 
and discerned as an object of consciousness. 

This contradiction, which is utterly inexplicable on the 
supposition that the infinite is a positive object of human 
thought, is at once accounted for, when it is regarded as 
the mere negation of thought. If all thought is limita- 
tion, — if whatever we conceive is, by the very act of con- 
ception, regarded as finite, — the infinite, from a human 
point of view, is merely a name for the absence of those 
conditions under which thought is possible. To speak of 
a Conception of the Infinite is, therefore, at once to affirm 
those conditions and to deny them. The contradiction, 



Lect. III. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 95 

which we discover in such a conception, is only that which 
we have ourselves placed there, by tacitly assuming the 
conceivability of the inconceivable. The condition of con- 
sciousness is distinction ; and the condition of distinction 
is limitation. We have no consciousness of Being in gen- 
eral which is not some Being in particular ; a thing, in con- 
sciousness, is one thing out of many. In assuming the 
possibility of an infinite object of consciousness, I assume, 
therefore, that it is at the same time limited and unlimited; 
— actually something, without which it could not be an 
object of consciousness, and actually nothing, without 
which it could not be infinite. ( 4 ) 

Rationalism is thus only consistent with itself, when it 
refuses to attribute consciousness to God. Consciousness, 
in the only form in which we can conceive it, implies limi- 
tation and change, — the perception of one object out of 
many, and a comparison of that object with others. To be 
always conscious of the same object, is, humanly speaking, 
not to be conscious at all ; < 5 ) and, beyond its human mani- 
festation, we can have no conception of what conscious- 
ness is. Viewed on the side of the object of consciousness, 
the same principle will carry us further still. Existence 
itself, that so-called highest category of thought, is only 
conceivable in the form of existence modified in some par- 
ticular manner. Strip off* its modification, and the ap- 
parent paradox of the German philosopher becomes liter- 
ally true ; — pure being is pure nothing. ( 6 ) We have no 
conception of existence which is not existence in some 
particular manner ; and if we abstract from the manner, 
we have nothing left to constitute the existence. Those 
who, in their horror of what they call anthropomorphism, 
or anthropopathy, refuse to represent the Deity under 
symbols borrowed from the limitations of human con- 



96 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. III. 

sciousness, are bound, in consistency, to deny that God 
exists ; for the conception of existence is as human and as 
limited as any other. The conclusion which Fichte boldly 
announces, awful as it is, is but the legitimate consequence 
of his premises. " The moral order of the universe is it- 
self God : we need no other, and we can comprehend no 
other." (7) 

A second characteristic of Consciousness is, that it is 
only possible in the form of a relation. There must be a 
Subject, or person conscious, and an Object, or thing of 
which he is conscious. There can be no consciousness 
without the union of these two factors; and, in that union, 
each exists only as it is related to the other. ( 8 ) The sub- 
ject is a subject, only in so far as it is conscious of an ob- 
ject : the object is an object, only in so far as it is appre- 
hended by a subject : and the destruction of either is the 
destruction of consciousness itself. It is thus manifest 
that a consciousness of the Absolute is equally self-con- 
tradictory with that of the Infinite. To be conscious of 
the Absolute as such, we must know that an object, which 
is given in relation to our consciousness, is identical with 
one which exists in its own nature, out of all relation to 
consciousness. But to know this identity, we must compare 
the two together ; and such a comparison is itself a contra- 
diction. We are in fact required to compare that of which 
we are conscious with that of which we are not conscious ; 
the comparison itself being an act of consciousness, and 
only possible through the consciousness of both its objects. 
It is thus manifest that, even if we could be conscious of 
the absolute, we could not possibly know that it is the ab- 
solute : and, as we can be conscious of an object as such, 
only by knowing it to be what it is, this is equivalent to an 
admission that Ave cannot be conscious of the absolute at 



Lect. III. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 97 

all. As an object of consciousness, everything is necessarily 
relative ; and what a thing may be out of consciousness, no 
mode of consciousness can tell us. 

This contradiction, again, admits of the same explanation 
as the former. Our whole notion of existence is necessarily 
relative ; for it is existence as conceived by us. But Ex- 
istence, as we conceive it, is but a name for the several ways 
in which objects are presented to our consciousness, — a 
general term, embracing a variety of relations. The Abso- 
lute, on the other hand, is a term expressing no object of 
thought, but only a denial of the relation by w 7 hich thought 
is constituted. To assume absolute existence as an object 
of thought, is thus to suppose a relation existing when the 
related terms exist no longer. An object of thought ex- 
ists, as such, in and through its relation to a thinker ; while 
the Absolute, as such, is independent of all relation. The 
Conception of the Absolute thus implies at the same time 
the presence and the absence of the relation by which 
thought is constituted ; and our various endeavors to rep- 
resent it are only so many modified forms of the contra- 
diction involved in our original assumption. Here, too, the 
contradiction is one which w r e ourselves have made. It 
does not imply that the Absolute cannot exist ; but it im- 
plies, most certainly, that we cannot conceive it as exist- 
ing. 0) 

Philosophers who are anxious to avoid this conclusion 
have sometimes attempted to evade it, by asserting that Ave 
may have in consciousness a partial, but not a total knowl- 
edge of the infinite and the absolute. ( 10 > But here again 
the supposition refutes itself. To have a partial knowledge 
of an object, is to know a part of it, but not the whole. 
But the part of the infinite which is supposed to be known 
must be itself either infinite or finite. If it is infinite, it 

9 



98 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. III. 

presents the same difficulties as before. If it is finite, the 
point in question is conceded, and our consciousness is al- 
lowed to be limited to finite objects. But in truth it is ob- 
vious, on a moment's reflection, that neither the Absolute 
nor the Infinite can be represented in the form of a whole 
composed of parts. Not the Absolute ; for the existence 
of a whole is dependent on the existence of its parts. Not 
the Infinite ; for if any part is infinite, it cannot be distin- 
guished from the w T hole ; and if each part is finite, no num- 
ber of such parts can constitute the Infinite. 

It would be possible, did my limits allow, to pursue the 
argument at length, through the various special modifica- 
tions which constitute the subordinate forms of conscious- 
ness. But with reference to the present inquiry, it w r ill be 
sufficient to notice two other conditions, under which all 
consciousness is necessarily manifested ; both of which 
have a special bearing on the relation of philosophy to 
theological controversy. 

All human consciousness, as being a change in our men- 
tal state, is necessarily subject to the law of Time, in its 
two manifestations of Succession and Duration. Every 
object, of whose existence we can be in any way conscious, 
is necessarily apprehended by us as succeeding in time to 
some former object of consciousness, and as itself occupy- 
ing a certain portion of time. In the former point of view, 
it is manifest, from what has been said before, that whatever 
succeeds something else, and is distinguished from it, is 
necessarily apprehended as finite ; for distinction is itself 
a limitation. In the latter point of view, it is no less man- 
ifest that whatever is conceived as having a continuous 
existence in time is equally apprehended as finite. For 
continuous existence is necessarily conceived as divisible 
into successive moments. One portion has already gone 



Lkct. III. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 99 

by; another is yet to come; each successive moment is 
related to something which has preceded, and to something 
which is to follow : and out of such relations the entire 
existence is made up. The acts, by which such exist- 
ence is manifested, being continuous in time, have, at any 
given moment, a further activity still to come : the object 
so existing must therefore always be regarded as capable 
of becoming something which it is not yet actually, — as 
having an existence incomplete, and receiving at each in- 
stant a further completion. It is manifest therefore that, 
if all objects of human thought exist in time, no such ob- 
ject can be regarded as exhibiting or representing the true 
nature of an Infinite Being. 

As a necessary consequence of this limitation, it follows, 
that an act of Creation, in the highest sense of the term, 
— that is to say, an absolutely first link in the chain of 
phenomena, preceded by no temporal antecedent, — is to 
human thought inconceivable. To represent in thought 
the first act of the first cause of all things, I must conceive 
myself as placed in imagination at the point at which tem- 
poral succession commences, and as thus conscious of the 
relation between a phenomenon in time and a reality out 
of time. But the consciousness of such a relation implies 
a consciousness of both the related members ; to realize 
which, the mind must be in and out of time at the same 
moment. Time, therefore, cannot be regarded as limited ; 
for to conceive a first or last moment of time would be to 
conceive a consciousness into which time enters, preceded 
or followed by one from which it is absent. But, on the 
other hand, an infinite succession in time is equally incon- 
ceivable ; for this succession also cannot be bounded by 
time, and therefore can only be apprehended by one who 
is himself free from the law of conceiving in time. From 



100 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. III. 

a human point of view, such a conception could only be 
formed by thrusting back the boundary forever ; — a pro- 
cess which itself would require an infinite time for its 
accomplishment. ( n ) Clogged by these counter impossi- 
bilities of thought, two opposite speculations have in vain 
struggled to find articulate utterance, the one for the hy- 
pothesis of an endless duration of finite changes, the other 
for that of an existence prior to duration itself. It is per- 
haps another aspect of the same difficulty, that, among 
various theories of the generation of the world, the idea 
of a creation out of nothing seems to have been altogether 
foreign to ancient philosophy, f 12 ) 

The limited character of all existence which can be con- 
ceived as having a continuous duration, or as made up of 
successive moments, is so far manifest, that it has been 
assumed, almost as an axiom, by philosophical theologians, 
that in the existence of God there is no distinction between 
past, present, and future. " In the changes of things," says 
Augustine, there is a past and a future : in God there is 
a present, in which neither past nor future can be."( 13 ) 
"Eternity," says Boethius, "is the perfect possession of 
interminable life, and of all that life at once : " ( 14 ) and 
Aquinas, accepting the definition, adds, "Eternity has 
no succession, but exists all together. " ( 15 ) But, whether 
this assertion be literally true or not (and this we have no 
means of ascertaining), it is clear that such a mode of 
existence is altogether inconceivable by us, and that the 
words in which it is described represent not thought, but 
the refusal to think at all. It is impossible that man, so 
long as he exists in time, should contemplate an object in 
whose existence there is no time. For the thought by 
which he contemplates it must be one of his own mental 
states : it must have a besnnnino; and an end : it must 



Lect. III. THOUGHT EXAIMNED. 101 

occupy a certain portion of duration, as a fact of human 
consciousness. There is therefore no manner of resem- 
blance or community of nature between the representative 
thought and that which it is supposed to represent ; for the 
one cannot exist out of time, and the other cannot exist in 
it. < 16 ) Nay, more : even were a mode of representation 
out of time possible to a man, it is utterly impossible that 
he should know it to be so, or make any subsequent use of 
the knowledge thus conveyed to him. To be conscious 
of a thought as mine, I must know it as a present condi- 
tion of my consciousness : to know that it has been mine, 
I must remember it as a past condition ; and past and pres- 
ent are alike modes of time. It is manifest, therefore, that 
a knowledge of the infinite, as existing out of time, even 
supposing it to take place at all, cannot be known to be 
taking place, cannot be remembered to have taken place, 
and cannot be made available for any purpose at any period 
of our temporal life. ( 17 > 

The command, so often urged upon man by philosophers 
and theologians of various ages and schools, " In contem- 
plating God, transcend time," < 18 ) if meant for anything 
more than a figure of rhetoric, is equivalent to saying, " Be 
man no more ; be thyself God." It amounts to the admis- 
sion that, to know the infinite, the human mind must itself 
be infinite; because an object of consciousness, which is in 
any way limited by the conditions of human thought, can- 
not be accepted as a representation of the unlimited. But 
two infinites cannot be conceived as existing together ; and 
if the mind of man must become infinite to know God, it 
must itself be God. ( 19 ) Pantheism, or self-acknowledged 
falsehood, are thus the only alternatives possible under this 
precept. If the human mind, remaining in reality finite, 
merely fancies itself to be infinite in its contemplation of 



102 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. III. 

God, the knowledge of God is itself based on a falsehood. 
If, on the other hand, it not merely imagines itself to be, 
but actually is, infinite, its personality is swallowed up in 
the infinity of the Deity ; its human existence is a delu- 
sion : God is, literally and properly, all that exists ; and 
the Finite, which appears to be, but is not, vanishes before 
the single existence of the One and All. 

Subordinate to the general law of Time, to which all 
consciousness is subject, there are two inferior conditions, 
to which the two great divisions of consciousness are sev- 
erally subject. Our knowledge of body is governed by 
the condition of space ; our knowledge of mind by that of 
personality. I can conceive no qualities of body, save as 
having a definite local position; and I can conceive no 
qualities of mind, save as modes of a conscious self. With 
the former of these limitations our present argument is not 
concerned; but the latter, as the necessary condition of the 
conception of spiritual existence, must be taken into account 
in estimating the philosophical value of man's conception 
of an infinite Mind. 

The various mental attributes which w r e ascribe to God — 
Benevolence, Holiness, Justice, Wisdom, for example — can 
be conceived by us only as existing in a benevolent and 
holy and just and wise Being, who is not identical with 
any one of his attributes, but the common subject of them 
all ; in one word, in a Person. But Personality, as we 
conceive it, is essentially a limitation and a relation. < 2 °) 
Our own personality is presented to us as relative and 
limited; and it is from that presentation that all our 
representative notions of personality are derived. Person- 
ality is presented to us as a relation between the conscious 
self and the various modes of his consciousness. There is 
no personality in abstract thought without a thinker: 



Lect. III. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 103 

there is no thinker, unless he exercises some mode of 
thought. Personality is also a limitation ; for the thought 
and the thinker are distinguished from and limit each 
other ; and the several modes of thought are distinguished 
each from each by limitation likewise. If I am any one 
of my own thoughts, I live and die with each successive 
moment of my consciousness. If I am not any one of my 
own thoughts, I am limited by that very difference, and 
each thought, as different from another, is limited also. 
This, too, has been clearly seen by j)hilosophical theologi- 
ans ; and accordingly, they have maintained that in God 
there is no distinction between the subject of conscious- 
ness and its modes, nor between one mode and another. 
" God," says Augustine, " is not a Spirit as regards sub- 
stance, and good as regards quality; but both as regards 
substance. The justice of God is one with his goodness 
and with his blessedness ; and all are one with his spirit- 
uality." < 21 ) But this assertion, if it be literally true (and 
of this we have no means of judging), annihilates Person- 
ality itself, in the only form in which we can conceive it. 
We cannot transcend our own personality, as we cannot 
transcend our own relation to time : and to speak of an 
Absolute and Infinite Person, is simply to use language 
to which, however true it may be in a superhuman sense, 
no mode of human thought can possibly attach itself. 

But are we therefore justified, even on philosophical 
grounds, in denying the Personality of God? or do we 
gain a higher or a truer representation of Him, by asserting, 
with the ancient or the modern Pantheist, that God, as 
absolute and infinite, can have neither intelligence nor 
will? < 22 ) Far from it. We dishonor God far more by 
identifying Him with the feeble and negative impotence of 



104 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. III. 

thought, which we are pleased to style the Infinite, than 
by remaining content within those limits which He for his 
own good purposes has imposed upon us, and confining 
ourselves to a manifestation, imperfect indeed and inade- 
quate, and acknowledged to be so, but still the highest 
idea that we can form, the noblest tribute that we can 
offer. Personality, with all its limitations, though far 
from exhibiting the absolute nature of God as He is, is yet 
truer, grander, more elevating, more religious, than those 
barren, vague, meaningless abstractions in which men bab- 
ble about nothing under the name of the Infinite. Per- 
sonal, conscious existence, limited though it be, is yet the 
noblest of all existences of which man can dream ; for it is 
that by which all existence is revealed to him: it is 
grander than the grandest object which man can know; 
for it is that which knows, not that which is known. ( 23 ) 
"Man," says Pascal, "is but a reed, the frailest in nature; 
but he is a reed that thinks. It needs not that the whole 
universe should arm itself to crush him ; — a vapor, a drop 
of water, will suffice to destroy him. But should the uni- 
verse crush him, man would yet be nobler than that which 
destroys him ; for he knows that he dies ; while of the 
advantage which the universe has over him, the universe 
knows nothing." ( 24 ) It is by consciousness alone that we 
know that God exists, or that we are able to offer Him 
any service. It is only by conceiving Him as a Conscious 
Being, that we can stand in any religious relation to Him 
at all ; that we can form such a representation of Him as 
is demanded by our spiritual wants, insufficient though it 
be to satisfy our intellectual curiosity. 

It is from the intense consciousness of our own real 
existence as Persons, that the conception of reality takes 



LKCT. III. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 105 

its rise in our minds: it is through that consciousness 
alone that we can raise ourselves to the faintest image of 
the supreme reality of God. What is reality, and what is 
appearance, is the riddle which Philosophy has put forth 
from the birthday of human thought; and the only 
approach to an answ T er has been a voice from the depths 
of the personal consciousness: "I think; therefore I 
am." ( 25 ) In the antithesis between the thinker and the 
object of his thought, — between myself and that which is 
related to me, — we find the type and the source of the 
universal contrast between the one and the many, the per- 
manent and the changeable, the real and the apparent. 
That which I see, that which I hear, that which I think, 
that which I feel, changes and passes away with each 
moment of my varied existence. I, who see, and hear, 
and think, and feel, am the one continuous self, whose 
existence gives unity and connection to the whole. Per- 
sonality comprises all that we know of that wilich exists : 
relation to personality comprises all that we know of that 
wmich seems to exist. And when, from the little world of 
man's consciousness and its objects, we would lift up our 
eyes to the inexhaustible universe beyond, and ask, to 
whom all this is related, the highest existence is still the 
highest personality ; and the Source of all Being reveals 
Himself by His name, I AM. 1 < 26 ) 

If there is one dream of a godless philosophy to which, 
beyond all others, every moment of our consciousness 
gives the lie, it is that which subordinates the individual 
to the universal, the person to the species ; which deifies 
kinds and realizes classifications ; which sees Being in gen- 
eralization, and Appearance in limitation ; which regards 
the living and conscious man as a wave on the ocean of 

Exodus iii. 14. 



106 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. III. 

the unconscious infinite ; his life, a momentary tossing to 
and fro on the shifting tide ; his destiny, to be swallowed 
up in the formless and boundless universe. ( 27 ) The final 
conclusion of this philosophy, in direct antagonism to the 
voice of consciousness, is, " I think ; therefore I am not." 
When men look around them in bewilderment for that 
which lies within them ; when they talk of the enduring 
species and the perishing individual, and would find, in 
the abstractions which their own minds have made, a 
higher and truer existence than in the mind which made 
them; — they seek for that which they know, and know 
not that for which they seek. ( 28 ) They would fain lift up 
the curtain of their own being, to view the picture which 
it conceals. Like the painter of old, they know not that 
the curtain is the picture. ( 29 ) 

It is our duty, then, to think of God as personal; and 
it is our duty to believe that He is infinite. It is true that 
we cannot reconcile these two representations with each 
other ; as our conception of personality involves attributes 
apparently contradictory to the notion of infinity. But 
it does not follow that this contradiction exists any where 
but in our own minds : it does not follow that it implies 
any impossibility in the absolute nature of God. The 
apparent contradiction, in this case, as in those previously 
noticed, is the necessary consequence of an attempt on 
the part of the human thinker to transcend the bounda- 
ries of his own consciousness. It proves that there are 
limits to man's power of thought ; and it proves no more. 

The preceding considerations are equally conclusive 
against both the methods of metaphysical theology de- 
scribed in my last Lecture, — that which commences with 
the divine to reason down to the human, and that which 
commences with the human to reason up to the divine. 



LECT III. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 107 

For though the mere abstract expression of the infinite, 
when regarded as indicating nothing more than the nega- 
tion of limitation, and, therefore, of conceivabilit} r , is not 
contradictory in itself, it becomes so the instant we at- 
tempt to apply it in reasoning to any object of thought. 
A thing — an object — an attribute — a person — or any 
other term signifying one out of many possible objects of 
consciousness, is by that very relation necessarily declared 
to be finite. An infinite thing, or object, or attribute, or 
person, is, therefore, in the same moment declared to be 
both finite and infinite. We cannot, therefore, start from 
any abstract assumption of the divine infinity, to reason 
downwards to any object of human thought. And, on 
the other hand, if all human attributes are conceived 
under the conditions of difference, and relation, and time, 
and personality, we cannot represent in thought any such 
attribute magnified to infinity ; for this, again, is to con- 
ceive it as finite and infinite at the same time. We can 
conceive such attributes, at the utmost, only indefinitely : 
that is to say, we may withdraw our thought, for the mo- 
ment, from the fact of their being limited ; but we cannot 
conceive them as infinite : that is to say, we cannot pos- 
itively think of the absence of the limit ; for, the instant 
we attempt to do so, the antagonist elements of the con- 
ception exclude one another, and annihilate the whole. 

There remains but one subterfuge to which Philosophy 
can have recourse, before she is driven to confess that the 
Absolute and the Infinite are beyond her grasp. If con- 
sciousness is against her, she must endeavor to get rid of 
consciousness itself. And, accordingly, the most distin- 
guished representatives of this philosophy in recent times, 
however widely differing upon other questions, agree in 
maintaining that the foundation for a knowledge of the 



108 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. III. 

infinite must be laid in a point beyond consciousness^ 30 ) 
But a system which starts from this assumption postulates 
its own failure at the outset. It attempts to prove that 
consciousness is a delusion ; and consciousness itself is 
made the instrument of proof; for by consciousness its 
reasonings must be framed and apprehended. It is by 
reasonings, conducted in conformity to the ordinary laws 
of thought, that the philosopher attempts to show that the 
highest manifestations of reason are above those laws. It 
is by representations, exhibited under the conditions of 
time and difference, that the philosopher endeavors to 
prove the existence, and deliver the results, of an intuition 
in which time and difference are annihilated. They thus 
assume, at the same moment, the truth and the falsehood 
of the normal consciousness ; they divide the human mind 
against itself; and by that division prove no more than 
that two supposed faculties of thought mutually invalidate 
each other's evidence. Thus, by an act of reason, philos- 
ophy destroys reason itself: it passes at once from ration- 
alism to mysticism, and makes inconceivability the crite- 
rion of truth. In dealing Avith religious truths, the theory 
which repudiates with scorn the notion of believing a 
doctrine although it is incomprehensible, springs at one 
desperate bound clear over faith into credulity, and pro- 
claims that its own principles must be believed because 
they are incomprehensible. The rhetorical paradox of 
the fervid African is adopted in cold blood as an axiom of 
metaphysical speculation : " It is certain, because it is im- 
possible." < 31 ) Such a theory is open to two fatal objec- 
tions, — it cannot be communicated, and it cannot be 
verified. It cannot be communicated ; for the communi- 
cation must be made in words ; and the meaning of those 
words must be understood; and the understanding is a 



Lect. III. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 109 

state of the normal consciousness. It cannot be verified ; 
for, to verify, we must compare the author's experience 
with our own ; and such a comparison is again a state of 
consciousness. Let it be granted for a moment, though 
the concession refutes itself, that a man may have a cogni- 
zance of the infinite by some mode of knowledge which 
is above consciousness. He can never say that the idea 
thus acquired is like or unlike that possessed by any other 
man ; for likeness implies comparison ; and comparison is 
only possible as a mode of consciousness, and between 
objects regarded as limited and related to each other. 
That which is out of consciousness cannot be pronounced 
true ; for truth is the correspondence between a conscious 
representation and the object which it represents. Neither 
can it be pronounced false; for falsehood consists in the 
disagreement between a similar representation and its 
object. Here, then, is the very suicide of Rationalism. 
To prove its own truth and the falsehood of antagonistic 
systems, it postulates a condition under which neither 
truth nor falsehood is possible. 

The results, to which an examination of the facts of con- 
sciousness has conducted us, may be briefly summed up as 
follows. Our whole consciousness manifests itself as subject 
to certain limits, which we are unable, in any act of thought, 
to transgress. That which falls within these limits, as an 
object of thought is known to us as relative and finite. The 
existence of a limit to our powers of thought is manifested 
by the consciousness of contradiction, which implies at the 
same time an attempt to think and an inability to accom- 
plish that attempt. But a limit is necessarily conceived as 
a relation between something within and something without 
itself; and thus the consciousness of a limit of thought 
implies, though it does not directly present to us, the exist- 

10 



110 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. III. 

cnce of something of which we do not and cannot think. 
When we lift up our eyes to that blue vault of heaven, 
which is itself but the limit of our own power of sight, we 
are compelled to suppose, though we cannot perceive, the 
existence of space beyond, as well as within it ; we regard 
the boundary of vision as parting the visible from the invis- 
ible. And when, in mental contemplation, we are conscious 
of relation and difference, as the limits of our power of 
thought, we regard them, in like manner, as the boundary 
between the conceivable and the inconceivable ; though we 
are unable to penetrate, in thought, beyond the nether 
sphere, to the unrelated and unlimited which it hides from 
us. < 32 ) The Absolute and the Infinite are thus, like the In- 
conceivable and the Imperceptible, names indicating, not an 
object of thought or of consciousness at all, but the mere 
absence of the conditions under which consciousness is pos- 
sible. The attempt to construct in thought an object an- 
swering to such names, necessarily results in contradiction ; 
— a contradiction, however, which we have ourselves pro- 
duced by the attempt to think ; — which exists in the act of 
thought, but not beyond it ; — which destroys the concep- 
tion as such, but indicates nothing concerning the existence 
or non-existence of that which we try to conceive. It 
proves our own impotence, and it proves nothing more. Or 
rather, it indirectly leads us to believe in the existence of 
that Infinite which we cannot conceive ; for the denial of its 
existence involves a contradiction, no less than the assertion 
of its conceivability. We thus learn that the provinces of 
Reason and Faith are not coextensive ; — that it is a duty, 
enjoined by Reason itself, to believe in that which we are 
unable to comprehend. 

I have now concluded that portion of my argument in 
which it was necessary to investigate in abstract terms the 



LECT. III. THOUGHT EXAMINED. Ill 

limits of human thought in general, as a preliminary to the 
examination of religious thought in particular. As yet, we 
have viewed only the negative side of man's consciousness ; 
— we have seen how it does not represent God, and why it 
does not so represent Him. There remains still to.be at- 
tempted the positive side of the same inquiry, — namely, 
what does our consciousness actually tell us concerning the 
Divine Existence and Attributes ; and how does its testi- 
mony agree with that furnished by Revelation. In prose- 
, cuting this further inquiry, I hope to be able to confine 
myself to topics more resembling those usually handled in 
this place, and to language more strictly appropriate to the 
treatment of Christian Theology. Yet there are advantages 
in the method which -I have hitherto pursued, which may, I 
trust, be accepted as a sufficient cause for whatever may 
have sounded strange and obscure in its phraseology. So 
long as the doubts and difficulties of philosophical specula- 
tion are familiar to us only in their religious aspect and lan- 
guage, so long we may be led to think that there is some 
peculiar defect or perplexity in the evidences of religion, by 
which it is placed in apparent antagonism to the more obvi- 
ous and unquestionable conclusions of reason. A very brief 
examination of cognate questions in their metaphysical 
aspect, will suffice to dissipate this misapprehension, and to 
show that the philosophical difficulties, which rationalists 
profess to discover in Christian doctrines, are in fact inher- 
ent in the laws of human thought, and must accompany 
every attempt at religious or irreligious speculation. 

There is also another consideration, which may justify the 
Christian preacher in examining, at times, the thoughts and 
language of human philosophy, apart from their special 
application to religious truths. A religious association may 
sometimes serve to disguise the real character of a line of 



112 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS LeCT. III. 

thought which, without that association, would have little 
power to mislead. Speculations which end in unbelief are 
often commenced in a believing spirit. It is painful, but at 
the same time instructive, to trace the gradual progress by 
which an unstable disciple often tears off strip by strip the 
wedding garment of his faith, — scarce conscious the while of 
his own increasing nakedness, — and to mark how the lan- 
guage of Christian belief may remain almost untouched, 
when the substance and the life have departed from it. 
While Philosophy speaks nothing but the language of 
Christianity, we may be tempted to think that the two are 
really one ; that our own speculations are but leading us to 
Christ by another and a more excellent way. Many a 
young aspirant after a philosophical faith, trusts himself to 
the trackless ocean of rationalism in the spirit of the too- 
confident Apostle : " Lord, bid me to come unto thee on the 
water." x And for a while he knows not how deep he sinks, 
till the treacherous surface on which he treads is yielding 
on every side, and the dark abyss of utter unbelief is yawn- 
ing to swallow him up. Well is it indeed with those who, 
even in that last fearful hour, can yet cry, " Lord, save me !" 
and can feel that supporting hand stretched out to grasp 
them, and hear that voice, so warning, yet so comforting, 
" O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt ? " 

But who that enters upon this course of mistrust shall 
dare to say that such will be the end of it ? Far better is 
it to learn at the outset the nature of that unstable surface 
on which we would tread, without being tempted by the 
phantom of religious promise, which shines delusively over 
it. He who hath ordered all things in measure and number 
and weight, 2 lias also given to the reason of man, as to his 
life, its boundaries, which it cannot pass. 3 And if, in the 

1 St. Matthew xiv. 28. 2 Wisdom xi. 20. 3 Job xiv. 5. 



Lect. III. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 113 

investigation of those boundaries, we have turned for a little 
while, to speak the language of human philosophy, the re- 
sult will but be to show that philosophy, rightly understood, 
teaches one lesson with the sacred volume of Revelation. 
With that lesson let us conclude, as it is given in the words 
of our own judicious divine and philosopher. "Dangerous 
it were for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the 
doings of the Most High ; whom although to know be life, 
and joy to make mention of His name ; yet our soundest 
knowledge is to know that we know Him not as indeed He 
is, neither can know Him: and our safest eloquence con- 
cerning Him is our silence, when we confess without confes- 
sion that His glory is inexplicable, His greatness above our 
capacity and reach. He is above, and we upon earth; 
therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few." ^ 

10* 



LECTURE IV. 

O THOU THAT HEAREST PRAYER, UNTO THEE SHALL ALL FLESH 
COME. — PSALM LXV. 2. 

That the Finite cannot comprehend the Infinite, is a 
truth more frequently admitted in theory than applied in 
practice. It has been expressly asserted by men who, al- 
most in the same breath, have proceeded to lay down canons 
o.f criticism, concerning the purpose of Revelation, and the 
truth or falsehood, importance or insignificance, of particur 
lar doctrines, on grounds which are tenable only on the sup- 
position of a perfect and intimate knowledge of God's Na- 
ture and Counsels. W Hence it becomes necessary to bring 
down the above truth from general to special statements ; 
— to inquire more particularly wherein the limitation of 
man's faculties consists, and in what manner it exhibits 
itself in the products of thought. This task I endeavored 
to accomplish in my last Lecture. To pursue the conclusion 
thus obtained to its legitimate consequences in relation to 
Theology, we must next inquire how the human mind, thus 
limited, is able to form the idea of a relation between man 
and God, and what is the nature of the conception of God 
which arises from the consciousness of this relation. The 
purpose of our inquiry is to ascertain the limits of religious 
thought; and, for this purpose, it is necessary to proceed 
from the limits of thought and of human consciousness in 
general, to those particular forms of consciousness which, in 



LECT. IV. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 115 

thought, or in some other mode, especially constitute the 
essence of Religion. 

Reasonings, probable or demonstrative, in proof of the 
being and attributes of God, have met with a very different 
reception at different periods. Elevated at one time, by the 
injudicious zeal of their advocates, to a certainty and im- 
portance to which they have no legitimate claim, at another, 
by an equally extravagant reaction, they have been sacri- 
ficed in the mass to some sweeping principle of criticism, or 
destroyed piecemeal by minute objections in detail. While 
one school of theologians has endeavored to raise the whole 
edifice of the Christian Faith on a basis of metaphysical 
proof, < 2 ) others have either expressly maintained that the 
understanding has nothing to do with religious belief, or 
have indirectly attempted to establish the same conclusion 
by special refutations of the particular reasonings. < 3 ) 

An examination of the actual state of the human mind, 
as regards religious ideas, will lead us to a conclusion inter- 
mediate between these two extremes. On the one hand, it 
must be allowed that it is not through reasoning that men 
obtain the first intimation of their relation to the Deity ; and 
that, had they been left to the guidance of their intellectual 
faculties alone, it is possible that no such intimation might 
have taken place ; or at best, that it would have been but 
as one guess, out of many equally plausible and equally nat- 
ural. Those who lay exclusive stress on the proof of the 
existence of God from the marks of design in the world, or 
from the necessity of supposing a first cause of all phe- 
nomena, overlook the fact that man learns to pray before he 
learns to reason, — that he feels within him the conscious- 
ness of a Supreme Being, and the instinct of worship, be- 
fore he can argue from effects to causes, or estimate the 
traces of wisdom and benevolence scattered through the 



116 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. IV. 

creation. But, on the other hand, arguments which would 
be insufficient to create the notion of a Supreme Being in a 
mind previously destitute of it, may have great force and 
value in enlarging or correcting a notion already existing, 
and in justifying to the reason the unreasoning convictions 
of the heart. The belief in a God, once given, becomes the 
nucleus round which subsequent experiences cluster and 
accumulate ; and evidences which would be obscure or am- 
biguous, if addressed to the reason only, become clear and 
convincing, when interpreted by the light of the religious 
consciousness. 

We may therefore, without hesitation, accede to the argu- 
ment of the great critic of metaphysics, when he tells us 
that the speculative reason is unable to prove the exist- 
ence of a Supreme Being, but can only correct our con- 
ception of such a Being, supposing it to be already ob- 
tained. ( 4 ) But, at the same time, it is necessary to protest 
against the pernicious extent to which the reaction against 
the use of the reason in theology has in too many instan- 
ces been carried. When the same critic tells us that we 
cannot legitimately infer, from the order and design visible 
in the world, the omnipotence and omniscience of its Cre- 
ator, because a degree of power and wisdom short of the 
very highest might possibly be sufficient to produce all the 
effects which we are able to discern ; ( 5 ) or when a later 
writer, following in the same track, condemns the argu- 
ment from final causes, because it represents God exclu- 
sively in the aspect of an artist; < 6 ) or when a third writer, 
of a different school, tells us that the processes of thought 
have nothing to do with the soul, the organ of religion ; (") 
— we feel that systems which condemn the use of reason- 
ing in sacred things may be equally one-sided and extrava- 
gant with those which assert its supreme authority. Rea- 



LECT. IV. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 117 

soiling must not be condemned for failing to accomplish 
what no possible mode of human consciousness ever does 
or can accomplish. If consciousness itself is a limitation ; 
if every mode of consciousness is a determination of the 
mind in one particular manner out of many possible; — it 
follows indeed that the infinite is beyond the reach of 
man's arguments ; but only as it is also beyond the reach 
of his feelings or his volitions. We cannot indeed reason 
to the existence of an infinite Cause from the presence of 
finite effects, nor contemplate the infinite in a finite mode 
of knowledge; but neither can we feel the infinite in the 
form of a finite affection, nor discern it as the law of a 
finite action. If our whole consciousness of God is partial 
and incomplete, composed of various attributes manifested 
in various relations, why should we condemn the reason- 
ing which represents Him in a single aspect, so long as it 
neither asserts nor implies that that aspect is the only one 
in which He can be represented ? If man is not a creature 
composed solely of intellect, or solely of will, why should 
any one element of his nature be excluded from participat- 
ing in the pervading consciousness of Him in whom we 
live, and move, and have our being ? 1 A religion based 
solely on the reason may starve on barren abstractions, or 
bewilder itself with inexplicable contradictions; but a 
religion which repudiates thought to take refuge in feeling, 
abandons itself to the wild follies of fanaticism, or the dis- 
eased ecstasies of mysticism ; while one which acknowl- 
edges the practical energies alone, may indeed attain to 
Stoicism, but will fall far short of Christianity. It is our 
duty indeed to pray with the spirit ; but it is no less our 
duty to pray with the understanding also. 2 

Taking, then, as the basis of our inquiry, the admission 

1 Acts xvii. 28. 2 1 Corinthians xiv. 13. 



118 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect IV, 

that the whole consciousness of man, whether in thought, 
or in feeling, or in volition, is limited in the manner of its 
operation and in the objects to which it is related, let us 
endeavor, with regard to the religious consciousness in par- 
ticular, to separate from each other the complicated threads 
which, in their united web, constitute the conviction of 
man's relation to a Supreme Being. In distinguishing, 
however, one portion of these as forming the origin of this 
conviction, and another portion as contributing rather to 
its further development and direction, I must not be under- 
stood to maintain or imply that the former could have 
existed and been recognized, prior to and independently of 
the cooperation of the latter. Consciousness, in its earli- 
est discernible form, is only possible as the result of an 
union of the reflective with the intuitive faculties. A state 
of mind, to be known at all as existing, must be distin- 
guished from other states ; and, to make this distinction, 
we must think of it, as well as experience it. Without 
thought as well as sensation, there could be no conscious- 
ness of the existence of an external world : without 
thought as well as emotion and volition, there could be no 
consciousness of the moral nature of man. Sensation 
without thought would at most amount to no more than 
an indefinite sense of uneasiness or momentary irritation, 
without any power of discerning in what manner we are 
affected, or of distinguishing our successive affections from 
each other. To distinguish, for example, in the visible 
world, any one object from any other, to know the house as 
a house, or the tree as a tree, we must be able to refer them 
to distinct notions ; and such reference is an act of thought. 
The same condition holds good of the religious conscious- 
ness also. In whatever mental affection we become con- 
scious of our relation to a Supreme Being, we can discern 



LECT. IV THOUGHT EXAMINED. 119 

that consciousness, as such, only by reflecting upon it as 
conceived under its proper notion. Without this, we could 
not know our religious consciousness to be what it is ; and, 
as the knowledge of a fact of consciousness is identical 
with its existence, — without this, the religious conscious- 
ness, as such, could not exist. 

But, notwithstanding this necessary cooperation of thought 
in every manifestation of human consciousness, it is not to 
the reflective faculties that we must look, if we would dis- 
cover the origin of religion. For, to the exercise of reflec- 
tion, it is necessary that there should exist an object on 
which to reflect ; and though, in the order of time, the dis- 
tinct recognition of this object is simultaneous with the act 
of reflecting upon it, yet, in the order of nature, the latter 
presupposes the former. Religious thought, if it is to exist 
at all, can only exist as representative of some fact of re- 
ligious intuition, — of some individual state of mind, in 
which is presented, as an immediate fact, that relation of 
man to God, of which man, by reflection, may become dis- 
tinctly and definitely conscious. 

Two such states may be specified, as dividing between 
them the rude material out of which Reflection builds up 
the edifice of Religious Consciousness. These are the Feel- 
ing of Dependence and the Conviction of Moral Obli- 
gation. To these two facts of the inner consciousness 
may be traced, as to their sources, the two great outward 
acts by which religion in various forms has been manifested 
among men ; — Prayer, by which they seek to win God's 
blessing upon the future, and Expiation, by which they 
strive to atone for the offences of the past. < 8 ) The feeling 
of Dependence is the instinct which urges us to pray. It 
is the feeling that our existence arid welfare are in the 
hands of a superior Power ; — not of an inexorable Fate or 



120 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. IV. 

immutable Law ; but of a Being having at least so far the 
attributes of Personality, that He can show favor or sever- 
ity to those dependent upon Him, and can be regarded by 
them with the feelings of hope, and fear, and reverence, 
and gratitude. It is a feeling similar in kind, though higher 
in degree, to that which is awakened in the mind of the 
child towards his parent, who is first manifested to his mind 
as the giver of such things as are needful, and to whom the 
first language he addresses is that of entreaty. It is the 
feeling so fully and intensely expressed in the language 
of the Psalmist : " Thou art he that took me out of my 
mother's womb : thou wast my hope, when I hanged yet 
upon my mother's breasts. I have been left unto thee ever 
since I was born : thou art my God even from my mother's 
womb. Be not thou far from me, O Lord : thou art my 
succour ; haste thee to help me. I will declare thy Name 
unto my brethren : in the midst of the congregation will I 
praise thee." 1 With the first development of consciousness, 
there grows up, as a part of it, the innate feeling that our 
life, natural and spiritual, is not in our power to sustain or 
to prolong ; — that there is One above us, on whom we are 
dependent, whose existence we learn, and whose presence 
we realize, by the sure instinct of Prayer. We have thus, 
in the Sense of Dependence, the foundation of one great 
element of Religion, — the Fear of God. 

But the mere consciousness of dependence does not of 
itself exhibit the character of the Being on whom we de- 
pend. It is as consistent with superstition as with religion ; 
— with the belief in a malevolent, as in a benevolent Deity : 
it is as much called into existence by the severities, as by 
the mercies of God ; by the suffering which we are unable 
to avert, as by the benefits which we did not ourselves pro- 

i Psalm xxii. 9, 10, 19, 22. 



LECT. IV. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 121 

cure. < 9 ) The Being on whom we depend is, in that single 
relation, manifested in the infliction of pain, as well as in 
the bestowal of happiness. But in order to make suffering, 
as well as enjoyment, contribute to the religious education 
of man, it is necessary that he should be conscious, not 
merely of suffering, but of sin/ — that he should look 
upon pain not merely as inflicted, but as deserved / and 
should recognize in its Author the justice that punishes, not 
merely the anger that harms. In the feeling of depend- 
ence, we are conscious of the Power of God, but not neces- 
sarily of His Goodness. This deficiency, however, is sup- 
plied by the other element of religion, — the Consciousness 
of Moral Obligation, — carrying with it, as it necessarily 
does, the Conviction of Sin. It is impossible to establish, 
as a great modern philosopher has attempted to do, the 
theory of an absolute Autonomy of the Will ; that is to say, 
of an obligatory law, resting on no basis but that of its own 
imperative character. ( 10 ) Considered solely in itself, with 
no relation to any higher authority, the consciousness of a 
law of obligation is a fact of our mental constitution, and it 
is no more. The fiction of an absolute law, binding on all 
rational beings, has only an apparent universality ; because 
we can only conceive other rational beings by identifying 
their constitution with our own, and making human reason 
the measure and representative of reason in general. Why 
then has one part of our constitution, merely as such, an 
imperative authority over the remainder ? What right has 
one portion of the human consciousness to represent itself 
as duty, and another merely as inclination ? There is but 
one answer possible. The moral Reason, or Will, or Con- 
science, of Man, call it by what name we please, can have 
no authority, save as implanted in him by some higher 
Spiritual Being, as a Law emanating from a Lawgiver. 

11 



122 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. IV. 

Man can be a law unto himself, only on the supposition that 
he reflects in himself the Law of God ; — that he shows, as 
the Apostle tells us, the works of that law written in his 
heart. 1 If he is absolutely a law unto himself, his duty and 
his pleasure are undistinguishable from each other; for he 
is subject to no one, and accountable to no one. Duty, in 
this case, becomes only a higher kind of pleasure, — a bal- 
ance between the present and the future, between the larger 
and the smaller gratification. We are thus compelled, by 
the consciousness of moral obligation, to assume the exist- 
ence of a moral Deity, and to regard the absolute standard 
of right and wrong as constituted by the nature of that 
Deity. ( u ) The conception of this standard, in the human 
mind, may indeed be faint and fluctuating, and must be im- 
perfect : it may vary with the intellectual and moral culture 
of the nation or the individual : and in its highest human 
representation, it must fall far short of the reality. But it 
is present to all mankind, as a basis of moral obligation and 
an inducement to moral progress : it is present in the uni- 
versal consciousness of sin ; in the conviction that we are 
offenders against God ; in the expiatory rites by which, 
whether inspired by some natural instinct, or inherited 
from some primeval tradition, divers nations have, in their 
various modes, striven to atone for their transgressions, and 
to satisfy the wrath of their righteous Judge. < 12 ) However 
erroneously the particular acts of religious service may have 
been understood by men : yet, in the universal conscious- 
ness of innocence and guilt, of duty and disobedience, of an 
appeased and offended God, there is exhibited the instinc- 
tive confession of all mankind, that the moral nature of 
man, as subject to a law of obligation, reflects and repre- 
sents, in some degree, the moral nature of a Deity by whom 
that obligation is imposed. 

i Romans ii. 15. 



Lect. IV. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 123 

Bat these two elements of the religious consciousness, 
however real and efficient within their own limits, are sub- 
ject to the same restrictions which we have before noticed 
as binding upon consciousness in general. Neither m the 
feeling of dependence, nor in that of obligation, can we be 
directly conscious of the Absolute or the Infinite, as such. 
And it is the more necessary to notice this limitation, inas- 
much as an opposite theory has been maintained by one 
whose writings have had perhaps more influence than those 
of any other man, in forming the modern religious philoso- 
phy of his own country ; and whose views, in all their essen- 
tial features, have been ably maintained and widely diffused 
among ourselves. According to Schleiermacher, the essence 
of Religion is to be found in a feeling of absolute and entire 
dependence, in which the mutual action and reaction of sub- 
ject and object upon each other, which constitutes the ordi- 
nary consciousness of mankind, gives way to a sense of 
utter, passive helplessness, — to a consciousness that our 
entire personal agency is annihilated in the presence of the 
infinite energy of the Godhead. In our intercourse with 
the world, he tells us, whether in relation to nature or to 
human society, the feeling of freedom and that of depend- 
ence are always present in mutual operation upon each 
other ; sometimes in equilibrium ; sometimes with a vast 
preponderance of the one or the other feeling ; but never 
to the entire exclusion of either. But in our communion 
with God, there is always an accompanying consciousness 
that the whole activity is absolutely and entirely dependent 
upon Him ; that, whatever amount of freedom may be ap- 
parent in the individual moments of life, these are but 
detached and isolated portions of a passively dependent 
whole. ( 13 ) The theory is carried still further, and expressed 
in more positive terms, by an English disciple, who says that, 



124 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. IV. 

"Although man, while in the midst of finite objects, always 
feels himself to a certain extent independent and free ; yet 
in the presence of that which is self-existent, infinite, and 
eternal, he may feel the sense of freedom utterly pass away, 
and become absorbed in the sense of absolute dependence." 
"Let the relation," he continues, "of subject and object in 
the economy of our emotions become such that the whole 
independent energy of the former merges in the latter as its 
prime cause and present sustainer; let the subject become 
as nothing, — not, indeed, from its intrinsic insignificance or 
incapacity of moral action, but by virtue of the infinity of 
the object to which it stands consciously opposed: and the 
feeling of dependence must become absolute; for all finite 
power is as nothing in relation to the Infinite." (14) 

Of this theory it may be observed, in the first place, that 
it contemplates God chiefly in the character of an object of 
infinite magnitude. The relations of the object to the sub- 
ject, in our consciousness of the world, and in that of God, 
differ from each other in degree rather than in kind. The 
Deity is manifested w r ith no attribute of personality : He is 
merely the world magnified to infinity : and the feeling of 
absolute dependence is in fact that of the annihilation of our 
personal existence in the Infinite Being of the Universe. 
Of this feeling, the intellectual exponent is pure Pantheism ; 
and the infinite object is but the indefinite abstraction of 
Being in general, with no distinguishing characteristic to 
constitute a Deity. For the distinctness of an object of 
consciousness is in the inverse ratio to the intensity of the 
passive affection. As the feeling of dependence becomes 
more powerful, the knowledge of the character of the ob- 
ject on which we depend must necessarily become less and 
less ; for the discernment of any object as such is a state of 
mental energy and reaction of thought upon that object. 



LECT. IV. T&OUGHT EXAMINED. 125 

Hence the feeling of absolute dependence, supposing it pos- 
sible, could convey no consciousness of God as God, but 
merely an indefinite impression of dependence upon some- 
thing. Towards an object so vague and meaningless, no 
real religious relation is possible. ( 15 ) 

In the second place, the consciousness of an absolute de- 
pendence in which our activity is annihilated, is a contradic- 
tion in terms ; for consciousness itself is an activity. We 
can be conscious of a state of mind as such, only by attend- 
ing to it ; and attention is in all cases a mode of our active 
energy. Thus the state of absolute dependence, supposing 
it to exist at all, could not be distinguished from other 
states ; and, as all consciousness is distinction, it could not, 
by any mode of consciousness, be known to exist. 

In the third place, the theory is inconsistent with the 
duty of Prayer. Prayer is essentially a state in which man 
is in active relation towards God ; in which he is intensely 
conscious of his personal existence and its wants ; in w r hich 
he endeavors by entreaty to prevail with God. Let any 
one consider for a moment the strong energy of the lan- 
guage of the Apostle : " Now I beseech you, brethren, for 
the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, 
that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for 
me ; W1 or the consciousness of a personal need, which per- 
vades that Psalm in which David so emphatically declares 
his dependence upon God: "My God, my God, look upon 
me ; why hast thou forsaken me, and art so far from my 
health, and from the words of my complaint ? O my God, 
I cry in the day-tinie, but thou nearest not; and in the 
night season also I take no rest;" 2 — let him ponder the 
words of our Lord himself: " Shall not God avenge his own 
elect, which cry day and night unto him:" 3 — and then 

1 Romans xv. 30. 2 Psalm xxii. 1,2. 8 St. Luke xviii. 7. 

11* 



126 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. IV. 

let him say if such language is compatible with the theory 
which asserts that man's personality is annihilated in his 
communion with God. ( 16 ) 

But, lastly, there is another fatal objection to the above 
theory. It makes our moral and religious consciousness 
subversive of each other, and reduces us to the dilemma 
that either our faith or our practice must be founded on a 
delusion. The actual relation of man to God is the same, 
in w r hatever degree man may be conscious of it. If man's 
dependence on God is not really destructive of his personal 
freedom, the religious consciousness, in denying that free- 
dom, is a false consciousness. If, on the contrary, man is 
in reality passively dependent upon God, the consciousness 
of moral responsibility, which bears witness to his free 
agency, is a lying witness. Actually, in the sight of God, 
we are either totally dependent, or, partially at least, free. 
And as this condition must be always the same, whether we 
are conscious of it or not, it follows, that, in proportion as 
one of these modes of consciousness reveals to us the truth, 
the other must be regarded as testifying to a falsehood. ( 17 ) 

Nor yet is it possible to find in the consciousness of 
moral obligation any immediate apprehension of the Abso- 
lute and Infinite. For the free agency of man, which in 
the feeling of dependence is always present as a subordi- 
nate element, becomes here the centre and turning-point 
of the whole. The consciousness of the Infinite is neces- 
sarily excluded ; first, by the mere existence of a relation 
between two distinct agents; and, secondly, by the condi- 
tions under which each must necessarily be conceived in 
its relation to the other. The moral consciousness of man, 
as subject to law, is, by that subjection, both limited and 
related; and hence it cannot in itself be regarded as a 
representation of the Infinite. Nor yet can such a repre- 



Lect. IV. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 127 

sentation be furnished by the other term of the relation, — 
that of the Moral Lawgiver, by whom human obligation 
is enacted. For, in the first place, such a Lawgiver must 
be conceived as a Person ; and the only human conception 
of Personality is that of limitation. In the second place, 
the moral consciousness of such a Lawgiver can only be 
conceived under the form of a variety of attributes; and 
different attributes are, by that very diversity, conceived 
as finite. Nay, the very conception of a moral nature is 
in itself the conception of a limit ; for morality is the 
compliance with a law; and a law, whether imposed from 
within or from without, can only be conceived to operate 
by limiting the range of possible actions. 

Yet along with all this, though our positive religious 
consciousness is of the finite only, there yet runs through 
the whole of that consciousness the accompanying convic- 
tion that the Infinite does exist, and must exist; — though 
of the manner of that existence we can form no concep- 
tion; and that it exists along with the Finite; — though 
we know not how such a coexistence is possible. We can- 
not be conscious of the Infinite ; but we can be and are 
conscious of the limits of our own powers of thought ; and 
therefore we know that the possibility or impossibility of 
conception is no test of the possibility or impossibility of 
existence. We know that, unless w^e admit the existence 
of the Infinite, the existence of the Finite is inexplicable 
and self-contradictory ; and yet we know that the concep- 
tion of the Infinite itself appears to involve contradictions 
no less inexplicable. In this impotence of Reason, we are 
compelled to take refuge in Faith, and to believe that an 
Infinite Being exists, though we know not how; and that 
He is the same with that Being who is made known in 
consciousness as our Sustainer and our Lawgiver. For 



128 LIMITS OF KELIGIOUS Lect. IV. 

to deny that an Infinite Being exists, because we cannot 
comprehend the manner of His existence, is, of two equally 
inconceivable alternatives, to accej)t the one which renders 
that very inconceivability itself inexplicable. If the Finite 
is the universe of existence, there is no reason why that 
universe itself should not be as conceivable as the several 
parts of which it is composed. Whence comes it then 
that our whole consciousness is compassed about with re- 
strictions, which we are ever striving to pass, and ever 
failing in the effort? Whence comes it that the Finite 
cannot measure the Finite? The very consciousness of 
our own limitations of thought bears witness to the exist- 
ence of the Unlimited, who is beyond thought. The 
shadow of the Infinite still broods over the consciousness 
of the finite ; and we wake up at last from the dream of 
absolute wisdom, to confess, " Surely the Lord is in this 
place; and I knew it not." 1 

We are thus compelled to acquiesce in at least one por- 
tion of Bacon's statement concerning the relation of human 
knowledge to its object: " Natura percutit intellectum radio 
directo ; Deus autem, propter medium inaequale (creaturas 
scilicet), radio refracto."( 18 ) To have sufficient grounds for 
believing in God is a very different thing from having suffi- 
cient grounds for reasoning about Him. The religious 
sentiment, which compels men to believe in and worship 
a Supreme Being, is an evidence of His existence, but not 
an exhibition of His nature. It proves that God is, and 
makes known some of His relations to us ; but it does not 
prove what God is in His own Absolute Being. ( 19 ) The 
natural senses, it may be, are diverted and colored by the 
medium through which they pass to reach the intellect, 
and present to us, not things in themselves, but things as 

i Genesis xxviii. 16. 



LECT. IV. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 129 

they appear to us. And this is manifestly the case with 
the religious consciousness, which can only represent the 
'Infinite God under finite forms. But we are compelled 
to believe, on the evidence of our senses, that a material 
world exists, even while we listen to the arguments of the 
idealist, who reduces it to an idea or a nonentity; and we 
are compelled, by our religious consciousness, to believe 
in the existence of a personal God ; though the reasonings 
of the Rationalist, logically followed out, may reduce us 
to Pantheism or Atheism. But to preserve this belief 
uninjured, we must acknowledge the true limits of our 
being : we must not claim for any fact of human conscious- 
ness the proud prerogative of revealing God as He is ; for 
thus we throw away the only weapon which can be of 
avail in resisting the assaults of Skepticism. We must be 
content to admit, with regard to the internal consciousness 
of man, the same restrictions which the great philosopher 
just now quoted has so excellently expressed with refer- 
ence to the external senses. "For as all works do show 
forth the power and skill of the workman, and not his 
image ; so it is of the works of God, which do show the 
omnipotency and wisdom of the maker, but not his image 
Wherefore by the contemplation of nature to in- 
duce and inforce the acknowledgment of God, and to 

demonstrate his power, is an excellent argument ; 

but on the other side, out of the contemplation of nature, 
or ground of human knowledge, to induce any verity or 
persuasion concerning the points of faith, is in my judg- 
ment not safe For the heathens themselves con- 
clude as much in that excellent and divine fable of the 
golden chain : That men and gods were not able to draw 
Jupiter down to the earth ; but contrariwise, Jupiter was 
able to draw them up to heaven." ( 2 °) 



130 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS LeCT. IV. 

One feature deserves especial notice, as common to both 
of those modes of consciousness which primarily exhibit 
our relation towards God. In both, we are compelled 
to regard ourselves as Persons related to a Person. In 
the feeling of dependence, however great it may be, the 
consciousness of myself, the dependent element, remains 
unextinguished ; and, indeed, without that element there 
could be no consciousness of a relation at all. In the sense 
of moral obligation, I know myself as the agent on whom 
the law is binding : I am free to choose and to act, as a 
person whose principle of action is in himself. And it is 
important to observe that it is only through this conscious- 
ness of personality that we have any ground of belief in the 
existence of a God. If we admit the arguments by w T hich 
this personality is annihilated, whether on the side of 
Materialism or on that of Pantheism, we cannot escape 
from the consequence to which those arguments inevitably 
lead, — the annihilation of God himself. If, on the one 
hand, the spiritual element within me is merely dependent 
on the corporeal, — if myself is a result of my bodily 
organization, and may be resolved into the operation of a 
system of material agents, — why should I suppose it to be 
otherwise in the great world beyond me ? If I, who deem 
myself a spirit distinct from and superior to matter, am but 
the accident and product of that which I seem to rule, why 
may not all other spiritual existence, if such there be, be 
dependent upon the constitution of the material uni- 
verse ? < 21 ) Or if, on the other hand, I am not a distinct 
substance, but a mode of the infinite, — a shadow passing 
over the face of the universe, — what is that universe 
which you would have me acknowledge a God ? It is, says 
the Pantheist, the One and All. < 22 ) By no means : it is 
the Many, in which is neither All nor One. You have 



LECT. IV. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 131 

taught me that within the little world of my own con- 
sciousness there is no relation between the one and the 
many ; but that all is transient and accidental alike. If I 
accept your conclusion, I must extend it to its legitimate 
consequence. Why should the universe itself contain a 
principle of unity? why should the Many imply the One? 
All that I see, all that I know, are isolated and unconnected 
phenomena ; I myself being one of them. Why should the 
Universe of Being be otherwise ? It cannot be All ; for 
its phenomena are infinite and innumerable; and all 
implies unity and completeness. It need not be One ; for 
you have yourself shown me that I am deceived in the only 
ground which I have for believing that a plurality of 
modes implies an unity of substance. If there is no Per- 
son to pray ; if there is no Person to be obedient ; — what 
remains but to conclude that He to whom prayer and obe- 
dience are due, — nay, even the mock-king who usurps His 
name in the realms of philosophy, — is a shadow and a 
delusion likewise ? 

The result of the preceding considerations may be 
summed up as follows. There are two modes in which we 
may endeavor to contemplate the Deity : the one negative, 
based on a vain attempt to transcend the conditions of 
human thought, and to expand the religious consciousness 
to the infinity of its Divine Object; the other positive, 
which keeps within its proper limits, and views the object 
in a manner accommodated to the finite capacities of the 
human thinker. The first aspires to behold God in His 
absolute nature : the second is content to view Him in 
those relations in which he has been pleased to manifest 
Himself to his creatures. The first aims at a speculative 
knowledge of God as He is ; but, bound by the conditions 
of finite thought, even in the attempt to transgress them, 



132 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS LeCT. IV. 

obtains nothing more than a tissue of ambitious self-con- 
tradictions, which indicate only what He is not. ( 23 > The 
second, abandoning the speculative knowledge of the infi- 
nite, as only possible to the Infinite Intelligence itself, is 
content with those regulative ideas of the Deity, which are 
sufficient to guide our practice, but not to satisfy our intel- 
lect ; ( 24 > — which tell us, not what God is in Himself, but 
how He wills that we should think of Him. ( 25 ) In re- 
nouncing all knowledge of the Absolute, it renounces at 
the same time all attempts to construct a priori schemes 
of God's Providence as it ought to be : it does not seek to 
reconcile this or that phenomenon, whether in nature or in 
revelation, with the absolute attributes of Deity ; but con- 
fines itself to the actual course of that Providence as man- 
ifested in the world ; and seeks no higher internal criterion 
of the truth of a religion, than may be derived from its 
analogy to other parts of the Divine Government. Guided 
by this, the only true Philosophy of Religion, man is con- 
tent to practise where he is unable to speculate. He acts, 
as one who must give an account of his conduct : he prays, 
believing that his prayer will be answered. He does not 
seek to reconcile this belief with any theory of the Infinite ; 
for he does not even know how the Infinite and the Finite 
can exist together. But he feels that his several duties 
rest upon the same basis : he knows that, if human action 
is not incompatible with Infinite Power, neither is human 
worship with Infinite Wisdom and Goodness : though it is 
not as the Infinite that God reveals Himself in His moral 
government ; nor is it as the Infinite that he promises to 
answer prayer. 

" O Thou that nearest prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh 
come." Sacrifice, and offering, and burnt-offerings, and 
offering for sin, Thou requirest no more ; for He whom 



Lect. IV. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 133 

these prefigured has offered Himself as a sacrifice once for 
all. 1 But He who fulfilled the sacrifice, commanded the 
prayer, and Himself taught us how to pray. He tells us 
that we are dependent upon God for our daily bread, for 
forgiveness of sins, for deliverance from evil ; — and how is 
that dependence manifested ? Not in the annihilation of 
our personality ; for we appeal to Him under the tenderest 
of personal relations, as the children of Our Father who is 
in heaven. Not as passive in contemplation, but as active 
in service ; for w T e pray, " Thy will be done, as in heaven, so 
in earth." In this manifestation of God to man, alike in 
Consciousness as in Scripture, under finite forms to finite 
minds, as a Person to a Person, we see the root and foun- 
dation of that religious service, without which belief is a 
speculation, and worship a delusion ; which, whatever would- 
be philosophical theologians may say to the contrary, is the 
common bond which unites all men to God. All are God's 
creatures, bound alike to reverence and obey their Maker. 
All are God's dependents, bound alike to ask for his sustain- 
ing bounties. All are God's rebels, needing daily and hourly 
to implore His forgiveness for their disobedience. All are 
God's redeemed, purchased by the blood of Christ, invited 
to share in the benefits of His passion and intercession. All 
are brought by one common channel into communion with 
that God to whom they are related by so many common 
ties. All are called upon to acknowledge their Maker, their 
Governor, their Sustainer, their Redeemer ; and the means 
of their acknowledgment is Prayer. 

And, apart from the fact of its having been God's good 
pleasure so to reveal Himself, there are manifest, even to 
human understanding, wise reasons why this course should 
have been adopted, benevolent ends to be answered by this 

1 Hebrews x. 8, 10. 
12 



134 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. IV. 

gracious condescension. We are not called upon to live 
two distinct lives in this world. It is not required of us 
that the household of our nature should be divided against 
itself; — that those feelings of love, and reverence, and 
gratitude, which move us in a lower degree towards our 
human relatives and friends, should be altogether thrown 
aside, and exchanged for some abnormal state of ecstatic 
contemplation, when we bring our prayers and praises and 
thanks before the footstool of our Father in heaven. We 
are none of us able to grasp in speculation the nature of the 
Infinite and Eternal ; but we all live and move among our 
fellow-men, at times needing their assistance, at times solic- 
iting their favors, at times seeking to turn away their anger. 
We have all, as children, felt the need of the supporting 
care of parents and guardians : w r e have all, in the gradual 
progress of education, required instruction from the wisdom 
of teachers : we have all offended against our neighbors, 
and known the blessings of forgiveness, or the penalty of 
unappeased anger. We can all, therefore, taught by the in- 
most consciousness of our human feelings, place ourselves in 
communion with God, w T hen He manifests Himself under 
human images. " He that loveth not his brother whom he 
hath seen," says the Apostle St. John, " how can he love 
God whom he hath not seen?" 1 Our heavenly affections 
must in some measure take their source and their form from 
our earthly ones : our love towards God, if it is to be love 
at all, must not be wholly unlike our love towards our 
neighbor: the motives and influences which prompt us, 
when we make known our wants and pour forth our suppli- 
cations to an earthly parent, are graciously permitted by our 
heavenly Father to be the type and symbol of those by 
which our intercourse w T ith Him is to be regulated, — with 

i St. John iv. 20. 



Lect. IV THOUGHT EXAMINED. 135 

which He bids us " come boldly unto the throne of grace, 
that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time 
of need." 1 

So should it be during this transitory life, in which we see 
through a glass, darkly ; 2 in which God reveals Himself in 
types and shadows, under human images and attributes, to 
meet graciously and deal tenderly with the human sympa- 
thies of His creatures. And although, even to the sons of 
God, it doth not yet appear what we shall be, when we shall 
be like him, and shall see Him as He is ; 3 yet, if it be true 
that our religious duties in this life are a training and pre- 
paration for that which is to come ; — if we are encouraged 
to look forward to and anticipate that future state, while we 
are still encompassed with this earthly tabernacle; — if we 
are taught to look, as to our great Example, to One who in 
love and sympathy towards His brethren was Very Man ; — 
if we are bidden not to sorrow without hope concerning 
them which are asleep, 4 and are comforted by the promise 
that the ties of love which are broken on earth shall be 
united in heaven, — we may trust that not wholly alien to 
such feelings will be our communion with God face to face, 
when the redeemed of all flesh shall approach once more to 
Him that heareth prayer ; — no longer in the chamber of 
private devotion ; no longer in the temple of public worship; 
but in that great City where no temple is ; " for the Lord 
God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it." 5 

1 Hebrews iv. 16. 2 i Corinthians xiii. 12. 3 i St. John iii. 2. 
4 Thessalonians iv. 13. 5 Revelation xxi. 22. 



LECTURE V. 

FOR AFTER THAT IN THE WISDOM OF GOD THE WORLD BY WISDOM 
KNEW NOT GOD, IT PLEASED GOD BY THE FOOLISHNESS OF PREACH- 
ING TO SAVE THEM THAT BELIEVE. FOR THE JEWS REQUIRE A 
SIGN, AND THE GREEKS SEEK AFTER WISDOM: BUT WE PREACH 
CHRIST CRUCIFIED, UNTO THE JEWS A STUMBLINGBLOCK, AND UNTO 
THE GREEKS FOOLISHNESS; BUT UNTO THEM WHICH ARE CALLED, 
BOTH JEWS AND GREEKS, CHRIST THE POWER OF GOD, AND THE 
WISDOM OF GOD. — 1 CORINTHIANS I. 21—24. 

"Though it were admitted," says Bishop Butler, "that 
this opinion of Necessity were speculatively true ; yet, 
with regard to practice, it is as if it were false, so far as 
our experience reaches ; that is, to the whole of our pres- 
ent life. For the constitution of the present world, and the 
condition in which we are actually placed, is as if we were 
free. And it may perhaps justly be concluded that, since 
the whole process of action, through every step of it, sus- 
pense, deliberation, inclining one way, determining, and at 
last doing as we determine, is as if we were free, therefore 
we are so. But the thing here insisted upon is, that under 
the present natural government of the world, we find we 
are treated and dealt with as if we were free, prior to all 
consideration whether we are or not." W 

That this observation has in any degree settled the 
speculative difficulties involved in the problem of Lib- 
erty and Necessity, will not be maintained by any one who 
is acquainted with the history of the controversy. Nor 
was it intended by its author to do so. But, like many 



LECT. V. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 137 

other pregnant sentences of that great thinker, it in- 
troduces a principle capable of a much wider application 
than to the inquiry which originally suggested it. The 
vexed question of Liberty and necessity, whose counter-ar- 
guments have become a by-word for endless and unprofit- 
able wrangling, is but one of a large class of problems, 
some of which meet us at every turn of our daily life and 
conduct, whenever we attempt to justify in theory that 
which we are compelled to carry out in practice. Such 
problems arise inevitably, whenever w r e attempt to pass 
from the sensible to the intelligible world, from the sphere 
of action to that of thought, from that which appears to us 
to that which is in itself. In religion, in morals, in our 
daily business, in the care of our lives, in the exercise of 
our senses, the rules which guide our practice cannot be 
reduced to principles which satisfy our reason. ( 2 ) 

The very first Law of Thought, and, through Thought, 
of all Consciousness, by which alone we are able to discern 
objects as such, or to distinguish them one from another, 
involves in its constitution a mystery and a doubt, w r hich 
no effort of Philosophy has been able to penetrate : — How 
can the One be many, or the Many one ? ( 3 ) We are 
compelled to regard ourselves and our feIlow T -men as per- 
sons, and the visible world around us as made up of 
things : but what is personality, and what is reality, are 
questions which the wisest have tried to answer, and have 
tried in vain. Man, as a Person, is one, yet composed of 
many elements ; — not identical with any one of them, 
nor yet w T ith the aggregate of them all ; and yet not sep- 
arable from them by any effort of abstraction. Man is one 
in his thoughts, in his actions, in his feelings, and in the 
responsibilities which these involve. It is I who think, 1 
who act, I who feel ; yet I am not thought, nor action, 

12* 



138 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. V. 

nor feeling, nor a combination of thoughts and actions and 
feelings heaped together. Extension, and resistance, and 
shape, and the various sensible qualities, make up my con- 
ception of each individual body as such ; yet the body is 
not its extension, nor its shape, nor its hardness, nor its 
color, nor its smell, nor its taste ; nor yet is it a mere ag- 
gregate of all these with no principle of unity among them. 
If these several jDarts constitute a single whole, the unity, 
as well as the plurality, must depend upon some principle 
which that whole contains: if they do not constitute a 
whole, the difficulty is removed but a single step ; for the 
same question, — what constitutes individuality ? — must 
be asked in relation to each separate part. The actual 
conception of every object, as such, involves the combina- 
tion of the One and the Many ; and that combination is 
practically made every time we think at all. But at the 
same time, no effort of reason is able to explain how such 
a relation is possible ; or to satisfy the intellectual doubt 
w r hich necessarily arises on the contemplation of it. 

As it is with the first law of Thought, so it is with the 
first principle of Action and of Feeling. All action, 
whether free or constrained, and all passion, implies and 
rests upon another great mystery of Philosophy, — the 
Commerce between Mind and Matter. The properties 
and operations of matter are known only by the external 
senses : the faculties and acts of the mind are known only 
by the internal apprehension. The energy of the one is 
motion : the energy of the other is consciousness. What 
is the middle term which unites these two ? and how can 
their reciprocal action, unquestionable as it is in fact, be 
conceived as possible in theory ? ( 4 ) How can a contact 
between body and body produce consciousness in the 
immaterial soul ? How can a mental self-determination 



Lect. V. THOUGHT EXAMINED 189 

produce the motion of material organs ? ( 5 ) How can 
mind, which is neither extended nor figured nor colored 
itself, represent by its ideas the extension and figure and 
color of bodies ? How can the body be determined to 
a new position in space by an act of thought, to which 
space has no relation ? How can thought itself be car- 
ried on by bodily instruments, and yet itself have noth- 
ing in common with bodily affections ? What is the 
relation between the last pulsation of the material brain 
and the first awakening of the mental perception ? How 
does the spoken word, a merely material vibration of the 
atmosphere, become echoed, as it were, in the silent voice 
of thought, and take its part in an operation wholly spirit- 
ual ? Here again we acknowledge, in our daily practice, 
a fact which we are unable to represent in theory; and the 
various hypotheses to w^hich Philosophy has had recourse, 
— the Divine Assistance, the Preestablished Harmony, the 
Plastic Medium, and others, < 6 ) are but so many confes- 
sions of the existence of the mystery, and of the extraor- 
dinary, yet wholly insufficient efforts made by human rea- 
son to penetrate it. W 

The very perception of our senses is subject to the same 
restrictions. " No priestly dogmas," says Hume, " ever 
shocked common sense more than the infinite divisibility 
of extension, with its consequences." < 8 ) He should have 
added, that the antagonist assumption of a finite divisibil- 
ity is equally incomprehensible ; it being as impossible to 
conceive an ultimate unit, or least possible extension, 
as it is to conceive the process of division carried on to 
infinity. Extension is presented to the mind as a relation 
between parts exterior to each other, whose reality cannot 
consist merely in their juxtaposition. We are thus com- 
pelled to believe that extension itself is dependent upon 



140 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. V. 

some higher law ; — that it is not an original principle of 
things in themselves, but a derived result of their connec- 
tion with each other. But to conceive how this gener- 
ation of space is possible, — how unextended objects can 
by their conjunction produce extension, — baffles the ut- 
most efforts of the wildest imagination or the profoundest 
reflection.* 9 ) We cannot conceive how unextended mat- 
ter can become extended ; for of unextended matter we 
know nothing, either in itself or in its relations ; though 
we are apparently compelled to postulate its existence, as 
implied in the appearances of which alone we are conscious. 
The existence of mental succession in time is as inexpli- 
cable as that of a material extension in space ; — a first 
moment and an infinite regress of moments being both 
equally inconceivable, no less than the corresponding the- 
ories of a first atom and an infinite division. 

The difficulty which meets us in these problems may 
help to throw some light on the purposes for which human 
thought is designed, and the limits within which it may 
be legitimately exercised. The primary fact of conscious- 
ness, which is accepted as regulating our practice, is in 
itself inexplicable, but not inconceivable. There is mys- 
tery ; but there is not yet contradiction. Thought is 
baffled, and unable to pursue the track of investigation ; 
but it does not grapple with an idea and destroy itself in 
the struggle. Contradiction does not begin till we direct 
our thoughts, not to the fact itself, but to that which it 
suggests as beyond itself. This difference is precisely that 
which exists between following the laws of thought, and 
striving to transcend them ; — between leaving the mystery 
of Knowing and Being unsolved, and making unlawful at- 
tempts to solve it. The facts, — that all objects of thought 
are conceived as wholes composed of parts ; that mind 



Lect. V. THOUGHT EXAMINED 141 

acts upon matter, and matter upon mind ; that bodies are 
extended in space, and thoughts successive in time, — do 
not, in their own statement, severally contain elements 
repulsive of each other. As mere facts, they are so far 
from being inconceivable, that they embody the very laws 
of conception itself, and are experienced at every moment 
as true : but though we are able, nay, compelled to con- 
ceive them as facts, we find it impossible to conceive them 
as ultimate facts. They are made known to us as rela- 
tions ; and all relations are in themselves complex, and 
imply simpler principles; — objects to be related, and a 
ground by which the relation is constituted. The con- 
ception of any such relation as a fact thus involves a fur- 
ther inquiry concerning its existence as a consequence; 
and to this inquiry no satisfactory answer can be given. 
Thus the highest principles of thought and action, to which 
we can attain, are regulative, not speculative; — they do 
not serve to satisfy the reason, but to guide the conduct ; 
they do not tell us what things are in themselves, but how 
we must conduct ourselves in relation to them. 

The conclusion which this condition of human conscious- 
ness almost irresistibly forces upon us, is one which equally 
exhibits the strength and the weakness of the human intel- 
lect. We are compelled to admit that the mind, in its 
contemplation of objects, is not the mere passive recipient 
of the things presented to it ; but has an activity and a 
law of its own, by virtue of which it reacts upon the ma- 
terials existing without, and moulds them into that form 
in which consciousness is capable of apprehending them. 
The existence of modes of thought, which we are com- 
pelled to accept as at the same time relatively ultimate 
and absolutely derived, — as limits beyond which we can- 
not penetrate, yet which themselves proclaim that there is 



142 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. V. 

a further truth behind and above them, — suggests, as its 
obvious explanation, the hypothesis of a mind cramped by 
its own laws, and bewildered in the contemplation of its 
own forms. If the mind, in the act of consciousness, were 
merely blank and inert; — if the entire object of its con- 
templation came from without, and nothing from within ; 
— no fact of consciousness would be inexplicable ; for 
everything would present itself as it is. No reality would 
be suggested, beyond what is actually given : no question 
would be asked which is not already answered. For how 
can doubt arise, where there is no innate power in the 
mind to think beyond what is placed before it, — to react 
upon that which acts upon it? But upon the contrary 
supposition, all is regular, and the result such as might 
naturally be expected. If thought has laws of its own, 
it cannot by its own act go beyond them ; yet the recogni- 
tion of law, as a restraint, implies the existence of a sphere 
of liberty beyond. If the mind contributes its own ele- 
ment to the objects of consciousness, it must, in its first 
recognition of those objects, necessarily regard them as 
something complex, something generated partly from with- 
out and partly from within. Yet in that very recognition 
of the complex, as such, is implied an impossibility of 
attaining to the simple ; for to resolve the composition is 
to destroy the very act of knowledge, and the relation by 
which consciousness is constituted. The object of which 
we are conscious is thus, to adopt the well-known language 
of the Kantian philosophy, a phenomenon, not a thing in 
itself; — a product, resulting from the twofold action of 
the tiling apprehended, on the one side, and the faculties 
apprehending it, on the other. The perceiving subject 
alone, and the perceived object alone, are two unmeaning 
elements, which first acquire a significance in and by the 
act of their conjunction. ( 10 ) 



LECT. V. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 143 

It is thus strictly in analogy with the method of God's 
Providence in the constitution of man's mental faculties, 
if we believe that, in Religion also, He has given us truths 
which are designed to be regulative, rather than specula- 
tive ; intended, not to satisfy our reason, but to guide our 
practice ; not to tell us what God is in His absolute nature, 
but how He wills that we should think of Him in our pres- 
ent finite state. ( n ) In my last Lecture, I endeavored to 
show that our knowledge of God is not a consciousness of 
the Infinite as such, but that of the relation of a Person 
to a Person; — the conception of personality being, hu- 
manly speaking, one of limitation. This amounts to the 
admission that, in natural religion at least, our knowledge 
of God does not satisfy the conditions of speculative phi- 
losophy, and is incapable of reduction to an ultimate and 
absolute truth. And this, as we now see, is in accordance 
with the analogy which the character of human philosophy 
in other provinces would naturally lead us to expect. ( 12 ) It 
is reasonable also that we should expect to find, as part 
of the same analogy, that the revealed manifestation of the 
Divine nature and attributes should also carry on its face 
the marks of subordination to some higher truth, of which 
it indicates the existence, but does not make known the 
substance. It is to be expected that our apprehension of 
the revealed Deity should involve mysteries inscrutable 
and doubts insoluble by our present faculties: while, at 
the same time, it inculcates the true spirit in which such 
doubts should be dealt with ; by warning us, as plainly as 
such a warning is possible, that we see a part only, and not 
the whole ; that w^e behold effects only, and not causes ; 
that our knowledge of God, though revealed by Himself, 
is revealed in relation to human faculties, and subject to 
the limitations and imperfections inseparable from the con- 



144 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. Y. 

stitution of the human mincl.( 13 ) We may neglect this 
warning if we please : we may endeavor to supply the 
imperfection, and thereby make it more imperfect still : we 
may twist and torture the divine image on the rack of 
human philosophy, and call its mangled relics by the high- 
sounding titles of the Absolute and the Infinite; but these 
ambitious conceptions, the instant we attempt to employ 
them in any act of thought, manifest at once, by their 
inherent absurdities, that they are not that which they 
pretend to be; — that in the place of the Absolute and 
Infinite manifested in its own nature, we have merely the 
Relative and Finite contradicting itself. 

We may indeed believe, and ought to believe, that the 
knowledge which our Creator has permitted us to attain to, 
whether by Revelation or by our natural faculties, is not 
given to us as an instrument of deception. We may believe, 
and ought to believe, that, intellectually as well as morally, 
our present life is a state of discipline and preparation for 
another ; and that the conceptions which we are compelled 
to adopt, as the guides of our thoughts and actions now, 
may indeed, in the sight of a higher Intelligence, be but 
partial truth, but cannot be total falsehood. But in thus 
believing, we desert the evidence of Reason, to rest on that 
of Faith ; and of the principles on which Reason itself de- 
pends, it is obviously impossible to have any other guar- 
antee. But such a Faith, however well founded, has itself 
only a regulative and practical, not a speculative and theo- 
retical application. It bids us rest content within the limits 
which have been assigned to us ; but it cannot enable us to 
overleap those limits, nor exalt to a more absolute character 
the conclusions obtained by finite thinkers under the con- 
ditions of finite thought. But, on the other hand, we must 
beware of the opposite extreme, — that of mistaking the 



Lect. V. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 145 

inability to affirm for the ability to deny. We cannot say 
that our conception of the Divine Nature exactly resembles 
that Nature in its absolute existence ; for we know not 
what that absolute existence is. But, for the same reason, 
we are equally unable to say that it does not resemble ; for, 
if we know not the Absolute and Infinite at all, we cannot 
say how far it is or is not capable of likeness or unlikeness 
to the Relative and Finite. We must remain content with 
the belief that we have that knowledge of God which is 
best adapted to our wants and training. How far that 
knowledge represents God as He is, we know not, and we 
have no need to know. 

The testimony of Scripture, like that of our natural fac- 
ulties, is plain and intelligible, when we are content to accept 
it as a fact intended for our practical guidance : it becomes 
incomprehensible, only when we attempt to explain it as a 
theory capable of speculative analysis. We are distinctly 
told that there is a mutual relation between God and man, 
as distinct agents ; — that God influences man by His grace, 
visits him with rewards or punishments, regards him with 
love or anger; — that man, within his own limited sphere, 
is likewise capable of "prevailing with God;" 1 that his 
prayers may obtain an answer, his conduct call down God's 
favor or condemnation. There is nothing self-contradictory 
or even unintelligible in this, if we are content to believe 
that it is so, without striving to understand how it is so. 
But the instant we attempt to analyze the ideas of God as 
infinite and man as finite ; — to resolve the scriptural state- 
ments into the higher principles on which their possibility 
apparently depends ; — we are surrounded on every side by 
contradictions of our own raising ; and, unable to compre- 
hend how the Infinite and the Finite can exist in mutual 

1 Genesis xxxii. 28. 
13 



146 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. V. 

relation, we are tempted to deny the fact of that relation 
altogether, and to seek a refuge, though it be but insecure 
and momentary, in Pantheism, which denies the existence 
of the Finite, or in Atheism, which rejects the Infinite. 
And here, again, the parallel between Religion and Philos- 
ophy holds : the same limits of thought are discernible in 
relation to both. The mutual intercourse of mind and mat- 
ter has been explained away by rival theories of Idealism 
on the one side and Materialism on the other. The unity 
and plurality, which are combined in every object of thought, 
have been assailed, on this side by the Eleatic, who main- 
tains that all things are one, and variety a delusion ; ( 14 ) on 
that side by the Skeptic, who tells us that there is no unity, 
but merely a mixture of differences ; that nothing is, but all 
things are ever becoming ; that mind and body, as sub- 
stances, are mere philosophical fictions, invented for the 
support of isolated impressions and ideas. ( 15 ) The mystery 
of Necessity and Liberty has its philosophical as well as its 
theological aspect : and a parallel may be found to both, in 
the counter-labyrinth of Continuity in Space, whose mazes 
are sufficiently bewildering to show that the perception of 
our bodily senses, however certain as a fact, reposes, in its 
ultimate analysis, upon a mystery no less insoluble than that 
which envelops the free agency of man in its relation to the 
Divine Omniscience. < 16 ) 

Action, and not knowledge, is man's destiny and duty in 
this life ; and his highest principles, both in philosophy 
and in religion, have reference to this end. But it does 
not follow, on that account, that our representations are 
untrue, because they are imperfect. To assert that a rep- 
resentation is itntrae, because it is relative to the mind of 
the receiver, is to overlook the fact that truth itself is 
nothing more than a relation. Truth and falsehood are not 



Lect. V. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 147 

properties of things in themselves, but of our conceptions, 
and are tested, not by the comparison of conceptions with 
things in themselves, but with things as they are given in 
some other relation. My conception of an object of sense 
is true, when it corresponds to the characteristics of the 
object as I perceive it ; but the perception itself is equally 
a relation, and equally implies the cooperation of human 
faculties. Truth in relation to no intelligence is a contra- 
diction in terms : our highest conception of absolute truth 
is that of truth in relation to all intelligences. But of the 
consciousness of intelligences different from our own we 
have no knowledge, and can make no application. Truth, 
therefore, in relation to man, admits of no other test than 
the harmonious consent of all human faculties ; and, as no 
such faculty can take cognizance of the Absolute, it follows 
that correspondence with the Absolute can never be re- 
quired as a test of truth. ( 17 ) The utmost deficiency that 
can be charged against human faculties amounts only to 
this: — that we cannot say that we know God as God 
knows himself; ( 18 ) — that the truth of which our finite 
minds are susceptible may, for aught we know, be but the 
passing shadow of some higher reality, which exists only 
in the Infinite Intelligence. 

That the true conception of the Divine Nature, so far as 
we are able to receive it, is to be found in those regulative 
representations which exhibit God under limitations accom- 
modated to the constitution of man ; not in the unmeaning 
abstractions which, aiming at a higher knowledge, distort, 
rather than exhibit, the Absolute and the Infinite ; is thus 
a conclusion warranted, both deductively, from the recog- 
nition of the limits of human thought, and inductively, by 
what we can gather from experience and analogy concern- 
ing God's general dealings with mankind. There remains 



148 LIMITS OF BELIGIOUS Lect. Y. 

yet a third indispensable probation, to which the same con- 
clusion must be subjected; namely, how far does it agree 
w T ith the teaching of Holy Scripture ? 

In no respect is the Theology of the Bible, as contrasted 
with the mythologies of human invention, more remarkable, 
than in the manner in which it recognizes and adapts itself 
to that complex and self-limiting constitution of the human 
mind, which man's wisdom finds so difficult to acknowledge. 
To human reason, the personal and the infinite stand out in 
apparently irreconcilable antagonism ; and the recognition 
of the one in a religious system almost inevitably involves 
the sacrifice of the other. The Personality of God disap- 
pears in the Pantheism of India ; His Infinity is lost sight 
of in the Polytheism of Greece. < 19 ) In the Hebrew Scrip- 
tures, on the contrary, throughout all their variety of 
Books and Authors, one method of Divine teaching is con- 
stantly manifested, appealing alike to the intellect and to 
the feelings of man. From first to last we hear the echo 
of that first great Commandment : " Hear, O Israel : The 
Lord our God is one Lord : and thou shalt love thy God 
with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
thy might. " 2 God is plainly and uncompromisingly pro- 
claimed as the One and the Absolute : "I am the first, and 
I am the last ; and beside me there is no God : " 2 yet this 
sublime conception is never for an instant so exhibited as 
to furnish food for that mystical contemplation to which 
the Oriental mind is naturally so prone. On the contrary, 
in all that relates to the feelings and duties by which relig- 
ion is practically to be regulated, we cannot help observ- 
ing how the Almighty, in communicating with His people, 
condescends to place Himself on what may, humanly speak- 
ing, be called a lower level than that on which the natural 

1 Deuteronomy vi. 4, 5. St. Mark xii. 29, 30. 2 Isaiah xliv. 6. 



LECT. V. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 149 

reason of man would be inclined to exhibit Him. While 
His Personality is never suffered to sink to a merely human 
representation ; while it is clearly announced that His 
thoughts are not our thoughts, nor His ways our ways, 1 yet 
His Infinity is never for a moment so manifested as to de- 
stroy or weaken the vivid reality of those human attributes, 
under which He appeals to the human sympathies of His 
creature. " The Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a 
man speaketh unto his friend." 2 He will listen to our sup- 
plications ': 3 He will help those that cry unto Him : 4 He 
reserveth wrath for His enemies : 5 He is appeased by 
repentance : 6 He showeth mercy to them that love Him. 7 
As a King, He listens to the petitions of His subjects : 8 as 
a Father, He pitieth His own children. 9 It is impossible to 
contemplate this marvellous union of the human and divine, 
so perfectly adapted to the wants of the human servant of 
a divine Master, without feeling that it is indeed the work 
of Him who formed the spirit of man, and fitted him for 
the service of His Maker. "He showeth His word unto 
Jacob, His statutes and ordinances unto Israel. He hath 
not dealt so with any nation ; neither have the heathen 
knowledge of His laws." 10 

But if this is the lesson taught us by that earlier mani- 
festation in which God is represented under the likeness 
of human attributes, what may we learn from that later 
and fuller revelation which tells us of One who is Himself 
both God and Man ? The Father has revealed Himself to 



1 Isaiah lv. 8. 2 Exodus xxxiii. 11. 3 Psalm cxlii. 1, 2. 

4 Psalm cii. 17, 18; cxlv. 19. Isaiah lviii. 9. 5 Nahum i. 2. 

6 1 Kings xxi. 19. Jeremiah xviii. 8. Ezekiel xviii. 23, 30. Jonah iii. 10. 

7 Exodus xx. 6. 8 Psalm v. 2; lxxiv. 12. Isaiah xxxiii. 22. 

9 Psalm ciii. 13. i° Psalm cxlvii. 19, 20. 

13* 



150 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. V. 

mankind under human types and images, that Pie may ap- 
peal more earnestly and effectually to man's consciousness 
of the human spirit within him. The Son has done more 
than this : He became for our sakes very Man, made in all 
things like unto His brethren ; * the Mediator between God 
and men, 2 being both God and Man. ( 2 °) Herein is our 
justification, if we refuse to aspire beyond those limits of 
human thought in which He has placed us. Herein is our 
answer, if any man would spoil us through philosophy 
and vain deceit. 3 Is it irrational to contemplate God under 
symbols drawn from the human consciousness? Christ 
is our pattern: "for in Him dwelleth all the fulness of 
the Godhead bodily." 4 ( 21 ) Is it unphilosophical that our 
thoughts of God should be subject to the law of time ? 
It was when the fulness of the time was come, that God 
sent forth his Son. 5 < 22 ) Does the philosopher bid us strive 
to transcend the human, and to annihilate our own person- 
ality in the presence of the Infinite ? The Apostle tells 
us to look forward to the time when we shall "all come in 
the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son 
of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stat- 
ure of the fulness of Christ." 6 Does human wisdom seek, 
by some transcendental form of intuition, to behold God 
as He is in his infinite nature ; repeating in its own man- 
ner the request of Philip, " Lord, show us the Father, and 
it sufficeth us ? " Christ Himself has given the rebuke 
and the reply : " He that hath seen me hath seen the 
Father ; and how say est thou then, Show us the Fa- 
ther?" 7 

1 Hebrews ii. 17. 2 1 Timothy ii. 5. s Colossians ii. 8. 

4 Colossians ii. 9. 5 Galatians iv. 4. 6 Ephesians iv. 13. 

7 St. John xiv. 8, 9. 



LECT. V. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 151 

The doctrine of a personal Christ, very God and very 
Man, has indeed been the great stumblingblock in the 
way of those so-called philosophical theologians who, in 
their contempt for the historical and temporal, would 
throw aside the vivid revelation of a living and acting 
God, to take refuge in the empty abstraction of an imper- 
sonal idea. And accordingly, they have made various elab- 
orate attempts to substitute in its place a conception 
more in accordance with the supposed requirements of 
speculative philosophy. Let us hear on this point, and un- 
derstand as we best may, the language of the great leader 
of the chief modern school of philosophical rationalists. 
" To grasp rightly and definitely in thought," says Hegel, 
" the nature of God as a Spirit, demands profound specula- 
tion. These propositions are first of all contained therein : 
God is God only in so far as He knows Himself: His own 
self-knowledge is moreover His self-consciousness in man, 
and man's knowledge of God, which is developed into 
man's self-knowledge in God." . . . "The Form of the 
Absolute Spirit," he continues, " separates itself from the 
Substance, and in it the different phases of the conception 
part into separate spheres or elements, in each of which 
the Absolute Substance exhibits itself, first as an eternal 
substance, abiding in its manifestation w r ith itself; sec- 
ondly, as a distinguishing of the eternal Essence from its 
manifestation, which through this distinction becomes the 
world of appearance, into which the substance of the ab- 
solute Spirit enters ; thirdly, as an endless return and 
reconciliation of the world thus projected with the eternal 
Essence, by which that Essence goes back from appear- 
ance into the unity of its fulness. " (23) The remainder of 
the passage carries out this metaphysical caricature of 
Christian doctrine into further details, bearing on my pres- 



152 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. Y. 

ent argument, but with even additional obscurity ; — an 
obscurity so great, that the effect of a literal translation 
would be too ludicrous for an occasion like the present. 
But enough has been quoted to show that if rationalizing 
philosophers have not made much progress, since the days 
of Job, in the ability to find out the Almighty unto perfec- 
tion, 1 they have at least not gone backwards in the art of 
darkening counsel by words without knowledge. 2 

What is the exact meaning of this profound riddle, which 
the author has repeated in different forms in various parts 
of his writings ; ( 24 ) — whether he really means to assert or 
to deny the existence of Christ as a man ; — whether he 
designs to represent the Incarnation and earthly life of the 
Son of God as a fact, or only as the vulgar representation 
of a philosophical idea, — is a point which has been stoutly 
disputed among his disciples, and which possibly the phi- 
losopher himself did not wish to see definitely settled. ( 25 ) 
But there is another passage, in which he has spoken some- 
what more plainly, and which, without being quite decisive, 
may be quoted as throwing some light on the tendency of 
his thought. " Christ," says this significant passage, " has 
been called by the church the God-Man. This monstrous 
combination is to the understanding a direct contradiction ; 
but the unity of the divine and human nature is in this 
respect brought into consciousness and certainty in man ; 
in that the Diversity, or, as we may also express it, the 
Finiteness, Weakness, Frailty of human nature, is not 
incompatible with this Unity, as in the eternal Idea Di- 
versity in nowise derogates from the Unity which is God. 
This is the monstrosity whose necessity we have seen. It 
is therein implied that the divine and human nature are 
not in themselves different. God in human form. The 

i Job xi. 7. 2 Job xxxviii. 2. 



Lect. V. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 153 

truth is, that there is but one Reason, one Spirit ; that the 
Spirit as finite has no real existence." ( 2G ) 

The dark sentences of the master have been, as might 
naturally be expected, variously developed by his disciples. 
Let us hear how the same theory is expressed in the lan- 
guage of one who is frequently commended as representing 
the orthodox theology of this school, and who has striven 
hard to reconcile the demands of his philosophy with the 
belief in a personal Christ. Marheineke assures us, that 
" the possibility of God becoming Man shows in itself that 
the divine and human nature are in themselves not sepa- 
rate : " that, " as the truth of the human nature is the di- 
vine, so the reality of the divine nature is the human." ( 2T ) 
And towards the conclusion of a statement worthy to rank 
with that of his master for grandiloquent obscurity, he says, 
" As Spirit, by renouncing Individuality, Man is in truth 
elevated above himself, without having abandoned the 
human nature : as Spirit renouncing Absoluteness, God 
has lowered Himself to human nature, without having 
abandoned his existence as Divine Spirit. The unity of 
the divine and human nature is but the unity in that 
Spirit whose existence is the knowledge of the truth, with 
which the doing of good is identical. This Spirit, as God 
in the human nature and as Man in the divine nature, is 
the God-Man. The man wise in divine holiness, and holy in 
divine wisdom, is the God-Man. As a historical fact," he 
continues, " this union of God with man is manifest and 
real in the Person of Jesus Christ : in Him the divine 
manifestation has become perfectly human. The concep- 
tion of the God-Man in the historical Person of Jesus 
Christ, contains in itself two phases in one ; first, that God 
is manifest only through man ; and in this relation Christ 
is as yet placed on an equality with all other men : He is 



154 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. V. 

the Son of Man, and therein at first represents only the 
possibility of God becoming Man : secondly, that in this 
Man, Jesus Christ, God is manifest, as in none other: this 
manifest Man is the manifest God ; but the manifest God 
is the Son of God ; and in this relation, Christ is God's 
Son ; and this is the actual fulfilment of the possibility or 
promise ; it is the reality of God becoming Man." ( 28 ) 

But this kind of halting between two opinions, which 
endeavors to combine the historical fact with the philo- 
sophical theory, was not of a nature to satisfy the bolder 
and more logical minds of the same school. In the theory 
of Strauss, we find the direct antagonism between the his- 
torical and the philosophical Christ fairly acknowledged ; 
and the former is accordingly set aside entirely, to make 
way for the latter. And here we have at least the advan- 
tage, that the trumpet gives no uncertain sound ; — that 
we are no longer deluded by a phantom of Christian doc- 
trine enveloped in a mist of metaphysical obscurity ; but 
the two systems stand out sharply and clearly defined, in 
their utter contrariety to each other. " In an individual, a 
God-Man," he tells us, " the pn^erties and functions which 
the church ascribes to Christ contradict themselves ; in the 
idea of the race, they perfectly agree. Humanity is the 
union of the two natures — God become Man, the infinite 
manifesting itself in the finite, and the finite Spirit remem- 
bering its infinitude : it is the child of the visible Mother 
and the invisible Father, Nature and Spirit : it is the 
worker of miracles, in so far as in the course of human 
history the spirit more and more completely subjugates 
nature, both within and around man, until it lies before 
him as the inert matter on which he exercises his active 
power : it is the sinless one, for the course of its develop- 
ment is a blameless one ; pollution cleaves to the individ- 



LECT V. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 155 

ual only, but in the race and its history it is taken away. 
It is Humanity that dies, rises, and ascends to heaven ; 
for from the negation of its natural state there ever pro- 
ceeds a higher spiritual life ; from the suppression of its 
finite character as a personal, national, and terrestrial Spirit, 
arises its union with the infinite Spirit of the heavens. By 
faith in this Christ, especially in his death and resurrection, 
man is justified before God : that is, by the kindling within 
him of the idea of Humanity, the individual man partici- 
pates in the divinely human life of the species. Now the 
main element of that idea is, that the negation of the 
merely natural and sensual life, which is itself the negation 
of the spirit (the negation of negation, therefore), is the 
sole way to true spiritual life." ( 29 ) 

These be thy gods, O Philosophy : these are the Meta- 
physics of Salvation. ( 3 °) This is that knowledge of things 
divine and human, which we are called upon to substitute 
for the revealed doctrine of the Incarnation of the eternal 
Son in the fulness of time. It is for this philosophical idea, 
so superior to all history and fact, — this necessary process 
of the unconscious and impersonal Infinite, — that we are 
to sacrifice that blessed miracle of Divine Love and Mercy, 
by which the Son of God, of His own free act and will, took 
man's nature upon Him for man's redemption. It is for this 
that we are to obliterate from our faith that touching picture 
of the pure and holy Jesus, to which mankind for eighteen 
centuries has ever turned, with the devotion of man to God 
rendered only more heartfelt by the sympathy of love be- 
tween man and man : which from generation to generation 
has nurtured the first seeds of religion in the opening mind 
of childhood, by the image of that Divine Child who was 
cradled in the manger of Bethlehem, and was subject to 
His parents at Nazareth : which has checked the fiery 



156 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. V. 

temptations of youth, by the thought of Him who " was in 
all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin : "* which 
has consoled the man struggling with poverty and sorrow, 
by the pathetic remembrance of Him who on earth had not 
where to lay his head : 2 which has blended into one broth- 
erhood the rich and the poor, the mighty and the mean 
among mankind, by the example of Him who, though He 
was rich, yet for our sakes became poor; 3 though He was 
equal with God, yet took upon Him the form' of a servant: 4 
which has given to the highest and purest precepts of 
morality an additional weight and sanction, by the records 
of that life in which the marvellous and the familiar are so 
strangely yet so perfectly united; — that life so natural in 
its human virtue, so supernatural in its divine power : which 
has robbed death of its sting, and the grave of its victory, 
by faith in Him who " was delivered for our offences, and 
was raised again for our justification : " 5 which has ennobled 
and sanctified even the w r ants and weaknesses of our mortal 
nature, by the memory of Him who was an hungered in the 
wilderness and athirst upon the cross ; who mourned over 
the destruction of Jerusalem, and wept at the grave of 
Lazarus. 

Let Philosophy say w T hat she will, the fact remains un- 
shaken. It is the consciousness of the deep wants of our 
human nature, that first awakens God's presence in the soul; 
it is by adapting His Revelation to those wants that God 
graciously condescends to satisfy them. The time may 
indeed come, though not in this life, w r hen these various 
manifestations of God, " at sundry times and in divers man- 
ners," 6 may be seen to be but different sides and partial 

1 Hebrews iv. 15. 2 St. Luke ix. 58. 3 2 Corinthians viii. 9. 

4 Philippians ii. 6, 7. 6 Romans iv. 25. 6 Hebrews i. 1. 



Lect. V. thought examined. 157 

representations of one and the same Divine Reality ; — when 
the light which now gleams in restless flashes from the ruf- 
fled waters of the human soul, will settle into the steadfast 
image of God's face shining on its unbroken surface. But 
ere this shall be, that which is perfect must come, and that 
which is in part must be done away. 1 But as regards the 
human wisdom which would lead us to this consummation 
now, there is but one lesson which it can teach us ; and that 
it teaches in spite of itself. It teaches the lesson which the 
wise king of Israel learned from his own experience : " I 
gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning 
all things that are done under heaven : I have seen all the 
"works that are done under the sun : and, behold, all is vanity 
and vexation of spirit. And I gave my heart to know wis- 
dom, and to know madness and folly : I perceived that this 
also is vexation of spirit." 2 And if ever the time should 
come to any of us, when, in the bitter conviction of that 
vanity and vexation, we, who would be as gods in knowl- 
edge, wake up only to the consciousness of our own naked- 
ness, happy shall we be, if then we may still hear, ringing 
in our ears and piercing to our hearts, an echo from that 
personal life of Jesus which our philosophy has striven in 
vain to pervert or to destroy : " Lord, to whom shall we go? 
thou hast the words of eternal life : and we believe and are 
sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God." 3 

1 1 Corinthians xiii. 10. 2 Ecclesiastes i. 13, 14, 17. 

3 St. John vi. 68, 69. 

14 



LECTURE VI. 

FOR WHAT MAN KNOWETH THE THINGS OF A MAN, SAVE THE SPIRIT 
OF MAN WHICH IS IN HIM? EVEN SO THE THINGS OF GOD KNOW- 
ETH NO MAN, BUT THE SPIRIT OF GOD. — * CORINTHIANS II. 11. 

The conclusion to be drawn from our previous inquiries 
is, that the doctrines of Revealed Religion, like all other 
objects of human thought, have a relation to the constitu- 
tion of the thinker to whom they are addressed ; within 
which relation their practical application and significance 
is confined. At the same time, this very relation indicates 
the existence of a higher form of the same truths, beyond 
the range of human intelligence, and therefore not capable 
of representation in any positive mode of thought. Relig- 
ious ideas, in short, like all other objects of man's conscious- 
ness, are composed of two distinct elements, — a Matter, 
furnished from without, and a Form, imposed from within 
by the laws of the mind itself. The latter element is com- 
mon to all objects of thought as such : the former is the 
peculiar and distinguishing feature, by which the doc- 
trines of Revelation are distinguished from other religi- 
ous representations, derived from natural sources ; or by 
which, in more remote comparison, religious ideas in gen- 



Lect. VI THOUGHT EXAMINED. 159 

eral may be distinguished from those relating to other 
objects. Now it is indispensable, before we can rightly 
estimate the value of the various objections which are ad- 
duced against this or that representation of Christian doc- 
trine, to ascertain which of these elements it is, against 
which the force of the objection really makes itself felt. 
There may be objections whose force, such as it is, tells 
against the revealed doctrine alone, and which are harm- 
less when directed against any other mode of religious rep- 
resentation. And there may also be objections which are 
applicable to the form which revealed religion shares in 
common with other modes of human thinking, and whose 
force, if they have any, is in reality directed, not against 
Revelation in particular, but against all Religion, and 
indeed against all Philosophy also. Now if, upon ex- 
amination, it should appear that the principal objections 
which are raised on the side of Rationalism properly so 
called, — those, namely, which turn on a supposed in- 
compatibility between the doctrine of Scripture and the 
deductions of human reason, are of the latter kind, and 
not of the former, Christianity is at least so far secure 
from any apprehension of danger from the side of rational 
philosophy. For the weapon with which she is assailed 
exhibits its own weakness in the very act of assailing. If 
there is error or imperfection in the essential forms of 
human thought, it must adhere to the thought criticizing, 
no less than to the thought criticized; and the result admits 
of but two legitimate alternatives* Either we must aban- 
don ourselves to an absolute Skepticism, which believes 
nothing and disbelieves nothing, and which thereby de- 
stroys itself in believing that nothing is to be believed ; 
or Ave must confess that reason, in thus criticizing, has 
transcended its legitimate province : that it has failed, not 



160 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VI. 

through its inherent weakness, but through being misdi- 
rected in its aim. We must then shift the inquiry to an- 
other field, and allow our belief to be determined, not solely 
by the internal character of the doctrines themselves, as 
reasonable or unreasonable, but partly at least, by the evi- 
dence which can be produced in favor of their asserted 
origin as a fact. The reasonable believer, in short, must 
abstain from pronouncing judgment on the nature of the 
message, until he has fairly examined the credentials of the 
messenger. 

There are two methods by which such an examination 
of objections may be conducted. TVe may commence by 
an analysis of thought in general, distinguishing the Form, 
or permanent element, from the Matter, or variable ele- 
ment ; and then, by applying the results of that analysis 
to special instances, we may show, upon deductive grounds, 
the formal or material character of this or that class of ob- 
jections. Or we may reverse the process, commencing by 
an examination of the objections themselves ; and, by ex- 
hibiting them in their relation to other doctrines besides 
those of Revelation, we may arrive at the same conclusion 
as to their general or special applicability. The former 
method is perhaps the most searching and complete, but 
could hardly be adequately carried out within my present 
limits, nor without the employment of a language more 
technical than would be suitable on this occasion. In se- 
lecting the latter method, as the more appropriate, I must 
request my hearers to bear in mind the general principles 
which it is proposed to exhibit in one or two special in- 
stances. These are, first, that there is no rational difficulty 
in Christian Theology which has not its corresponding 
difficulty in human Philosophy : and, secondly, that there- 
fore we may reasonably conclude that the stumbling- 



LECT. VI. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 161 

blocks which the rationalist professes to find in the doc- 
trines of revealed religion arise, not from defects peculiar 
to revelation, but from the laws and limits of human 
thought in general, and are thus inherent in the method 
of rationalism itself, not in the objects which it pretends 
to criticize. 

But, before applying this method to the peculiar doc- 
trines of the Christian revelation, it will be desirable to 
say a few words on a preliminary condition, on which our 
belief in the possibility of any revelation at all is depend- 
ent. We must justify, in the first instance, the limitations 
which have been assigned to human reason in relation to 
the great foundation of all religious belief whatsoever : we 
must show how far the same method warrants the asser- 
tion which has been already made on other grounds ; 
namely, that we may and ought to believe in the existence 
of a God whose nature we are unable to comprehend ; that 
we are bound to believe that God exists ; and to acknowl- 
edge Him as our Sustainer and our Moral Governor : 
though we are wholly unable to declare what He is in 
His own Absolute Essence. 0-) 

Many philosophical theologians, who are far from reject- 
ing any of the essential doctrines of revelation, are yet un- 
willing to ground their acceptance of them on the duty of 
believing in the inconceivable. "The doctrine of the in- 
cognizability of the Divine essence," says the learned and 
deep-thinking Julius Muller, "with the intention of exalt- 
ing God to the highest, deprives Him of the realities, 
without which, as it is itself obliged to confess, we cannot 
really think of Him. That this negative result, just as 
decidedly as the assumption of an absolute knowledge of 
God, contradicts the Holy Scriptures, which especially 
teach that God becomes revealed in Christ, as it does that 

14* 



162 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VI 

of the simple Christian consciousness, may be too easily 
shown for it to be requisite that we should here enter 
upon the same : it is also of itself clear into what a 
strange position theology must fall by the renunciation of 
the knowledge of its essential object." ( 2 ) As regards the 
former part of this objection, I endeavored, in my last 
Lecture, to show that a full belief in God, as revealed in 
Christ, is not incompatible with a speculative inability to 
apprehend the Divine Essence. As regards the latter 
part, it is important to observe the exact parallel Avhich 
in this respect exists between the fundamental conception 
of Theology and that of Philosophy. The Principle of 
Causality, the father, as it has been called, of metaphysi- 
cal science, ( 3 ) is to the philosopher w 7 hat the belief in the 
existence of God is to the theologian. Both are principles 
inherent in our nature, exhibiting, whatever may be their 
origin, those characteristics of universality and certainty 
which mark them as part of the inalienable inheritance of 
the human mind. Neither can be reduced to a mere logi- 
cal inference from the facts of a limited and contingent 
experience. Both are equally indispensable to their re- 
spective sciences : without Causation, there can be no Phi- 
losophy ; as without God there can be no Theology. Yet 
to this day, while enunciating now, as ever, the funda- 
mental axiom, that for every event there must be a Cause, 
Philosophy has never been able to determine what Causa- 
tion is ; to analyze the elements which the causal nexus 
involves ; or to show by what law she is justified in assum- 
ing the universal postulate upon w r hich all her reasonings 
depend. ( 4 ) The Principle of Causality has ever been, and 
probably ever will be, the battle ground on w T hich, from 
generation to generation, Philosophy has struggled for her 
very existence in the death-gripe of Skepticism; and at 



LECT. VI. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 163 

every pause in the contest, the answer has been still the 
same : " We cannot explain it, but we must believe it." 
Causation is not the mere invariable association of antece- 
dent and consequent : we feel that it implies something 
more than this. ( 5 ) Yet, beyond the little sphere of our 
own volitions, what more can we discover ? and within that 
sphere, what do we discover that we can explain ? ( 6 ) The 
unknown something, call it by what name you will, — 
power, effort, tendency, — still remains absolutely con- 
cealed, yet is still conceived as absolutely indispensable. 
Of Causality, as of Deity, we may almost say, in the em- 
phatic language of Augustine, " Cujus nulla scientia est in 
anima, nisi scire quomodo eum nesciat." ( 7 > We can speak 
out boldly and clearly of each, if we are asked, what it is 
not : we are silent only when we are asked, what it is. 
The eloquent words of the same great father are as appli- 
cable to human as to divine Philosophy i 1 " Deus ineffabilis 
est : facilius dicimus quid non sit, quam quid sit. Terram 
cogitas ; non est hoc Deus : mare cogitas ; non est hoc 
Deus : omnia quae sunt in terra, homines et animalia ; non 
est hoc Deus : omnia quaa sunt in mari, quas volant per 
aerem ; non est hoc Deus : quidquid lucet in ccelo, stellse, 
sol et luna ; non est hoc Deus : ipsum ccelum ; non est hoc 
Deus. Angelos cogita, Virtutes, Potestates, Archangelos, 
Thronos, Sedes, Dorninationes ; non est hoc Deus. Et 
quid est ? Hoc solum potui dicere, quid non sit." ( 8 ) 

1 " God is ineffable; more easily do we tell what He is not, than what He 
is. You think of earth; this is not God: of the sea; this is not God: of 
all things that are on the earth, men and animals; these are not God: 
of all that are in the sea, that fly through the air; these are not God: of 
whatever shines in heaven, stars, sun, and moon; these are not God: the 
heaven itself; this is not God. Think of Angels, Virtues, Powers, Arch- 
angels, Thrones, Seats, Dominations ; these are not God. And what is 
He? This only can I tell, what He is not." 



164 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VI- 

From the fundamental doctrine of Religion in general, 
let us pass on to that of Christianity in particular. " The 
Catholic Faith is this : that we worship one God in Trinity, 
and Trinity in Unity." How, asks the objector, can the 
One be Many, or the Many One ? or how is a distinction 
of Persons compatible with their perfect equality ? ( 9 ) It is 
not a contradiction to say, that we are compelled by the 
Christian Verity to acknowledge every Person by Him- 
self to be God and Lord ; and yet are forbidden by the 
Catholic Religion to say, There be three Gods, or three 
Lords. (10) 

To exhibit the philosophical value of this objection, we 
need only make a slight change in the language of the doc- 
trine criticized. Instead of a plurality of persons in the Di- 
vine Unity, we have only to speak of a plurality of Attri- 
butes in the Divine Essence. How can there be a variety 
of Attributes, each infinite in its kind, and yet all together 
constituting but one Infinite ? or how, on the other hand, 
can the Infinite be conceived as existing without diversity 
at all ? We know, indeed, that various attributes exist in 
man constituting in their plurality one and the same con- 
scious self. Even here, there is a mystery which we cannot 
explain ; but the fact is one which we are compelled, by 
the direct testimony of consciousness, to accept without 
explanation. But in admitting, as we are compelled to 
do, the coexistence of many attributes in one person, we 
can conceive those attributes only as distinct from each 
other, and as limiting each other. Each mental attribute 
is manifested as a separate and determinate mode of con- 
sciousness, marked off and limited, by the very fact of its 
manifestation as such. Each is developed in activities and 
operations from which the others are excluded. But this 
type of the conscious existence fails us altogether, when we 



LECT. VI. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 165 

attempt to transfer it to the region of the Infinite. That 
there can be but one Infinite, appears to be a necessary 
conclusion of reason ; for diversity is itself a limitation : 
yet here we have many Infinites, each distinct from the 
other, yet all constituting one Infinite, which is neither 
identical with them nor distinguishable from them. If 
Reason, thus baffled, falls back on the conception of a 
simple Infinite Nature, composed of no attributes, her case 
is still more hopeless. That which has no attributes is 
nothing conceivable ; for things are conceived by their at- 
tributes. Strip the Infinite of the Attributes by which it is 
distinguished as infinite, and the Finite of those by which 
it is distinguished as finite ; and the residue is neither the 
Infinite as such, nor the Finite as such, nor any one being 
as distinguished from any other being. It is the vague 
and empty conception of Being in general, which is no be- 
ing in particular, — a shape, 

" If Shape it might be called, that shape had none 
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb, 
Or Substance might be called, that Shadow seemed, 
For each seemed either." (11) 

The objection, " How can the One be Many, or the Many 
One ? " is thus so far from telling with peculiar force against 
the Catholic doctrine of the Holy Trinity, that it has pre- 
cisely the same power or want of power, and may be urged 
with precisely the same effect, or want of effect, against any 
conception, theological or philosophical, in which we may 
attempt to represent the Divine Nature and Attributes as 
infinite, or, indeed, to exhibit the Infinite at all. The same 
argument applies with equal force to the conception of the 
Absolute. If the Divine Nature is conceived as being noth- 
ing more than the sum of the Divine Attributes, it is not 



166 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VI. 

Absolute ; for the existence of the whole, will be dependent 
on the existence of its several parts. If, on the other hand, 
it is something distinct from the Attributes, and capable of 
existing without them, it becomes, in its absolute essence, 
an absolute void, — an existence manifested by no charac- 
teristic features, — a conception constituted by nothing con- 
ceivable. < 12 ) 

The same principle may be also applied to another por- 
tion of this great fundamental truth. The doctrine of the 
Son of God, begotten of the Father, and yet coeternal with 
the Father, is in nowise more or less comprehensible by hu- 
man reason, than the relation between the Divine Essence 
and its Attributes. < 13 ) In the order of Thought, or of Na- 
ture, the substance to which attributes belong has a logical 
priority to the attributes which exist in relation to it. The 
Attributes are attributes of a Substance. The former are 
conceived as the dependent and derived ; the latter as the 
independent and original existence. Yet in the order of 
Time (and to the order of Time all human thought is lim- 
ited), it is as impossible to conceive the Substance existing 
before its Attributes, as the Attributes before the Sub- 
stance. ( 14 ) We cannot conceive a being originally simple, 
developing itself in the course of time into a complexity of 
attributes; for absolute simplicity cannot be conceived as 
containing within itself a principle of development, nor as 
differently related to different periods of time, so as to com- 
mence its development at any particular moment. < 15 ) Nor 
yet can we conceive the attributes as existing prior to the 
substance ; for the very conception of an attribute implies 
relation to a substance. Yet the third hypothesis, that of 
their coexistence in all time, is equally incomprehensible ; 
for this is to merge the Absolute and Infinite in an eternal 
relation and difference. We cannot conceive God as first 



LECT. VI. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 167 

existing, and then as creating His own attributes ; for the 
creative power must then itself be created. Nor yet can 
we conceive the Divine Essence as constituted by the eter- 
nal coexistence of attributes ; for then w r e have many Infi- 
nites, with no bond of unity between them. The mystery 
of the Many and the One, which has baffled philosophy ever 
since philosophy began, meets it here, as everywhere, with 
its eternal riddle. Reason gains nothing by repudiating 
Revelation ; for the mystery of Revelation is the mystery 
of Reason also. 

I should not for an instant dream of adducing this meta- 
physical parallel as offering the slightest approach to & proof 
of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. What it 
really illustrates is, not God's Nature, but man's ignorance. 
Without an Absolute Knowing there can be no comprehen- 
sion of Absolute Being. ( 16 ) The position of human reason, 
with regard to the ideas of the Absolute and the Infinite, is 
such as equally to exclude the Dogmatism which would 
demonstrate Christian Doctrine from philosophical premises, 
and the Rationalism which rejects it on the ground of phil- 
osophical difficulties, as well as that monstrous combination 
of both, which distorts it in pretending to systematize it. 
The Infinite is known to human reason, merely as the ne- 
gation of the Finite : we know what it is not ; and that is 
all. The conviction, that an Infinite Being exists, seems 
forced upon us by the manifest incompleteness of our finite 
knowledge - ; but we have no rational means whatever of de- 
termining what is the nature of that Being. ( 1T ) The mind 
is thus perfectly blank with regard to any speculative repre- 
sentation of the Divine Essence ; and for that very reason, 
Philosophy is not entitled, on internal evidence, to accept 
any, or to reject any. The only question which we are 
reasonably at liberty to ask in this matter, relates to the 



168 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VI. 

evidences of the Revelation as a fact. If there is sufficient 
evidence, on other grounds, to show that the Scripture, in 
which this doctrine is contained, is a Revelation from God, 
the doctrine itself must be unconditionally received, not as 
reasonable, nor as unreasonable, but as scriptural. If there 
is not such evidence, the doctrine itself will lack its proper 
support; but the Reason which rejects it is utterly incom- 
petent to substitute any other representation in its place. 

Let us pass on to the second great doctrine of the Catho- 
lic Faith, — that which asserts the union of two Natures in 
the Person of Christ. " The right Faith is, that we believe 
and confess, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is 
God and Man : God of the Substance of the Father, begot- 
ten before the worlds; and Man, of the Substance of His 
Mother, born in the world." ( 18 > 

Our former parallel was drawn from the impossibility of 
conceiving, in any form, a relation between the Infinite and 
the Infinite. Our present parallel may be found in the equal 
impossibility of conceiving, by the natural reason, a relation 
between the Infinite and the Finite ; — an impossibility 
equally insurmountable, whether the two natures are con- 
ceived as existing in one Being, or in divers. Let us attempt, 
if we can, to conceive, at any moment of time, a finite 
world coming into existence by the fiat of an Infinite Cre- 
ator. Can we conceive that the amount of existence is 
thereby increased, — that the Infinite and the Finite to- 
gether contain more reality than formerly existed in the 
Infinite alone? The supposition annihilates itself; for it 
represents Infinite Existence as capable of becoming greater 
still. But, on the other hand, can we have recourse to the 
opposite alternative, and conceive the Creator as evolving 
the world out of His own Essence ; the amount of Being 
remaining as before, yet the Infinite and the Finite both 



Lect. YI. thought examined. 169 

existing? This supposition also annihilates itself; for if 
the Infinite suffer diminution by that portion of it which 
becomes the Finite, it is infinite no longer ; and if it suffers 
no diminution, the two together are but equal to the Infinite 
alone, and the Finite is reduced to absolute nonentity. < 19 ) In 
any mode whatever of human thought, the coexistence of 
the Infinite and the Finite is inconceivable ; and yet the 
non-existence of either is, by the same laws of conscious- 
ness, equally inconceivable. If Reason is to be the supreme 
Judge of Divine Truths, it will not be sufficient to follow its 
guidance up to a certain point, and to stop when it is incon- 
venient to proceed further. There is no logical break in the 
chain of consequences, from Socinianism to Pantheism, and 
from Pantheism to Atheism, and from Atheism to Pyrrhon- 
ism; and Pyrrhonism is but the suicide of Reason itself. 
"Xature," says Pascal, "confounds the Pyrrhonists, and 
reason confounds the Dogmatists. What then becomes of 
man, if he seeks to discover his true condition by his natural 
reason ? He cannot avoid one of these sects, and he cannot 
subsist in either." ( 2 °) 

Let Religion begin where it will, it must begin with that 
which is above Reason. What then do we gain by that 
parsimony of belief, which strives to deal out the Infinite 
in infinitesimal fragments, and to erect the largest possi- 
ble superstructure of deduction upon the smallest possible 
foundation of faith ? We gain just this : that we forsake 
an incomprehensible doctrine, which rests upon the word 
of God, for one equally incomprehensible, which rests upon 
the word of man. Religion, to be a relation between God 
and man at all, must rest on a belief in the Infinite, and 
also on a belief in the Finite ; for if we deny the first, 
there is no God ; and if we deny the second, there is 
no Man. But the coexistence of the Infinite and the 

15 



170 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VI. 

Finite, in any manner whatever, is inconceivable by rea- 
son ; and the only ground that can be taken for accepting 
one representation of it rather than another, is that one 
is revealed, and another is not revealed. "We may seek 
as we will for a " Religion within the limits of the bare 
Reason ; " and we shall not find it ; simply because no such 
thing exists ; and if we dream for a moment that it does 
exist, it is only because we are unable or unwilling to pur- 
sue reason to its final consequences. But if we do not, 
others will ; and the system which we have raised on the 
shifting basis of our arbitrary resting-place, waits only till 
the wind of controversy blows against it, and the flood of 
unbelief descends upon it, to manifest itself as the work of 
the "foolish man which built his house upon the sand." l 

Having thus endeavored to exhibit the limits of human 
reason in relation to those doctrines of Holy Scripture 
which reveal to us the nature of God, I shall next attempt 
briefly to apply the same argument to those representations 
which more directly declare His relation to the world. 

The course of Divine Providence, in the government of 
the world, is represented in Scripture under the twofold 
aspect of General Law and Special Interposition. Not 
only is God the Author of the universe, and of those regu- 
lar laws by which the periodical recurrence of its natural 
phenomena is determined ; 2 but He is also exhibited as 
standing in a special relation to mankind; as the direct 
cause of events by which their temporal or spiritual wel- 
fare is affected : as accessible to the prayers of His ser- 
vants ; as to be praised for His special mercies towards 

i St. Matthew vii. 26. 

2 Genesis i. 14; viii. 22; Job xxxviii. xxxix; Psalm xix. 1—6; lxxiv. 17; 
civ. 5 — 31; cxxxv. 7; cxlviii. 6. 



Lect. VI. THOUGHT EXAMINED 171 

each of us in particular. 1 But this scriptural representa- 
tion has been discovered by Philosophy to be irrational. 
God is unchangeable ; and therefore He cannot be moved 
by man's entreaty. He is infinitely wise and good ; and 
therefore He ought not to deviate from the perfection of 
His Eternal Counsels. "The religious man," says a writer 
of the present day, " who believes that all events, mental as 
well as physical, are preordered and arranged according to 
the decrees of infinite wisdom, and the philosopher, who 
knows that, by the wise and eternal laws of the universe, 
cause and effect are indissolubly chained together, and that 
one follows the other in inevitable succession, — equally 
feel that this ordination — this chain — cannot be change- 
able at the cry of man. ... If the purposes of God were 
not wise, they would not be formed ; — if wise, they can- 
not be changed, for then they would become unwise. . . . 
The devout philosopher, trained to the investigation of 
universal system, — the serene astronomer, fresh from the 
study of the changeless laws which govern innumerable 
worlds, — shrinks from the monstrous irrationality of ask- 
ing the great Architect and Governor of all to work a mir- 
acle in his behalf, — to interfere, for the sake of his con- 
venience or his plans, with the sublime order conceived by 
the Ancient of Days in the far Eternity of the Past ; for 
what is a special providence but an interference with 
established laws? and what is such interference but a 
miracle? "(21) 

N"ow here, as in the objections previously noticed, the 
rationalist mistakes a general difficulty of all human 
thought for a special difficulty of Christian belief. The 
really insoluble problem is, how to conceive God as acting 
at all; not how to conceive Him as acting in this way, rather 

1 Psalm lxv. 2; cii. 17, 18; ciii. 1, 3; cxliii. 1, 2; cxlv. 19. 



172 LIMITS OP RELIGIOUS Lect. VI. 

than in that. The creation of the world at any period of 
time ; — the establishment, at any moment, of immutable 
laws for the future government of that world ; — this is 
the real mystery which reason is unable to fathom, this is 
the representation which seems to contradict our con- 
ceptions of the Divine Perfection. To that pretentious 
perversion of the finite which philosophy dignifies with 
the name of the Infinite, it is a contradiction to suppose 
that any change can take place at any moment ; — that any 
thing can begin to exist, which was not from all eternity. 
To conceive the Infinite Creator, at any moment of time, 
calling into existence a finite world, is, in the human point 
of view, to suppose an imperfection, either before the act, 
or after it. It is to suppose the development of a power 
hitherto unexercised, or the limiting to a determinate act 
that which was before general and indeterminate. 

May we not then repeat our author's objection in 
another form ? How can a Being of Infinite Wisdom and 
Goodness, without an act of self-deterioration, change the 
laws which have governed His own solitary existence in 
the far Eternity when the world was not ? Or rather, may 
we not ask what these very phrases of " changeless laws " 
and " far Eternity " really mean ? Do they not represent 
God's existence as manifested under the conditions of dura- 
tion and succession, — conditions which necessarily involve 
the conception of the imperfect and the finite ? They have 
not emancipated the Deity from the law of Time : they 
have only placed Him in a different relation to it. They 
have merely substituted, for the revealed representation of 
the God who from time to time vouchsafes His aid to the 
needs of His creatures, the rationalizing representation of 
the God who, throughout all time, steadfastly refuses to 
do so. ( 22 > 



LECT. VI. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 173 

If, then, the condition of Time is inseparable from all 
human conceptions of the Divine Nature, what advantage 
do we gain, even in philosophy, by substituting the supposi- 
tion of immutable order in time for that of special interpo- 
sition in time ? Both of these representations are doubt- 
less speculatively imperfect : both depict the Infinite God 
under finite symbols. But for the regulative purposes of 
human conduct in this life, each is equally necessary : and 
who may dare, from the depths of his own ignorance, to 
say that each may not have its prototype in the ineffable 
Being of God ? ( 2S ) We are sometimes told that it gives 
us a more elevated idea of the Divine Wisdom and Power, 
to regard the Creator as having finished His work once for 
all, and then abandoned it to its own unerring laws, than to 
represent Him as interfering, from time to time, by the 
way of direct personal superintendence ; — just as it im- 
plies higher mechanical skill to make an engine which shall 
go on perpetually by its own motion, than one which re- 
quires to be continually regulated by the hand of its 
maker. ( 24 ) This ingenious simile fails only in the im- 
portant particular, that both its terms are utterly unlike 
the objects which they profess to represent. The world 
is not a machine ; and God is not a mechanic. The world 
is not a machine ; for it consists, not merely of wheels of 
brass, and springs of steel, and the fixed properties of inani- 
mate matter ; but of living and intelligent and free-acting 
persons, capable of personal relations to a living and in- 
telligent and free-acting Ruler. And God is not a me- 
chanic ; for the mechanic is separated from his machine 
by the whole diameter of being ; as mind, giving birth to 
material results; as the conscious workman, who meets 
with no reciprocal consciousness in his work. It may be 
a higher evidence of mechanical skill, to abandon brute 

15* 



174 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. YI. 

matter once for all to its own laws ; but to take this as the 
analogy of God's dealings with His living creatures — as 
well tell us that the highest image of parental love and 
forethought is, that of the ostrich, "which leaveth her 
eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in dust." 1 ( 25 > 

But if such conclusions are not justified by our a priori 
knowledge of the Divine nature, are they borne out em- 
pirically by the actual constitution of the world ? Is there 
any truth in the assertion, so often put forth as an unde- 
niable discovery of modern science, " that cause and effect 
are indissolubly chained together, and that one follows 
the other in inevitable succession?" There is just that 
amount of half-truth which makes an error dangerous ; 
and there is no more. Experience is of two kinds, and 
Philosophy is of two kinds ; — that of the world of mat- 
ter, and that of the world of mind, — that of physical suc- 
cession, and that of moral action. In the material world, 
if it be true that the researches of science tend towards 
(though who can say that they will ever reach ?) the es- 
stablishment of a system of fixed and orderly recurrence; 
in the mental world, we are no less confronted, at every 
instant, by the presence of contingency and free will. ( 26 ) 
In the one we are conscious of a chain of phenomenal 
effects; in the other of self, as an acting and originating 
cause. Nay, the very conception of the immutability of 
the law of cause and effect, is not so much derived from 
the positive evidence of the former, as from the negative 
evidence of the latter. We believe the succession to be 
necessary, because nothing but mind can be conceived as 
interfering with the successions of matter ; and, where 
mind is excluded, we are unable to imagine contin- 
gence. ( 2T ) But what right has this so-called philosophy 

i Job xxxix. 14. 



Lect. VI. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 175 

to build a theory of the universe on material principles 
alone, and to neglect what experience daily and hourly 
forces upon our notice, — the perpetual interchange of the 
relations of matter and mind ? In passing from the ma- 
terial to the moral world, we pass at once from the phe- 
nomenal to the real ; from the successive to the continu- 
ous ; from the many to the one ; from an endless chain of 
mutual dependence to an originating and self-determining 
source of power. m That mysterious, yet unquestionable 
presence of Will; — that agent, uncompelled, yet not un- 
influenced, whose continuous existence and productive 
energy are summoned up in the word Myself; — that 
perpetual struggle of good with evil ; — those warnings 
and promptings of a Spirit, striving with our spirit, com- 
manding, yet not compelling ; acting upon us, yet leaving 
us free to act for ourselves ; — that twofold consciousness 
of infirmity and strength in the hour of temptation ; — 
that grand ideal of what we ought to be, so little, alas ! to 
be gathered from the observation of what we are ; — that 
overwhelming conviction of Sin in the sight of One higher 
and holier than we; — that irresistible impulse to Prayer, 
which bids us pour out our sorrows and make our wants 
known to One who hears and will answer us ; — that in- 
definable yet inextinguishable consciousness of a direct 
intercourse and communion of man with God, of God's in- 
fluence upon man, yea, and (with reverence be it spoken) 
of man's influence upon God : — these are facts of experi- 
ence, to the full as real and as certain as the laws of 
planetary motions and chemical affinities; — facts which 
Philosophy is bound to take into account, or to stand 
convicted as shallow and one-sided; — facts which can 
deceive us, only if our whole Consciousness is a liar, and 
the boasted voice of Reason itself but an echo of the uni- 
versal lie. 



176 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VI. 

Even within the domain of Physical Science, however 
much analogy may lead us to conjecture the universal 
prevalence of law and orderly sequence, it has been 
acutely remarked, that the phenomena which are most 
immediately important to the life and welfare of man, are 
precisely those which he never has been, and probably 
never w T ill be, able to reduce to a scientific calculation. < 28 ) 
The astronomer, whp can predict the exact position of a 
planet in the heavens a thousand years hence, knows not 
what may be his own state of health to-morrow, nor how 
the wind which blows upon him will vary from day to 
day. May we not be permitted to conclude, with a dis- 
tinguished Christian philosopher of the present day, that 
there is a Divine Purpose in this arrangement of nature ; 
that, while enough is displayed to stimulate the intellect- 
ual and practical energies of man, enough is still concealed 
to make him feel his dependence upon God? ( 29 ) 

For man's training in this life, the conceptions of Gen- 
eral Law and of Special Providence are both equally nec- 
essary ; the one, that he may labor for God's blessings, 
and the other, that he may pray for them. He sows, and 
reaps, and gathers in his produce, to meet the different 
seasons, as they roll their unchanging course : he acknowl- 
edges also that " neither is he that planteth anything, 
neither he that watereth ; but God that giveth the in- 
crease." l He labors in the moral training of himself and 
others, in obedience to the general laws of means and 
ends, of motives and influences ; wiiile he asks, at the 
same time, for wisdom from above to guide his course 
aright, and for grace to enable him to follow that guid- 
ance. Necessary alike during this our state of trial, it 
may be that both conceptions alike are but shadows of 

1 1 Corinthians iii. 7. 



Lect. VI. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 177 

some higher truth, in which their apparent oppositions are 
merged in one harmonious whole. But when we attempt, 
from our limited point of view, to destroy the one, in order 
to establish the other more surely, we overlook the fact 
that our conception of General Law is to the full as human 
as that of Special Interposition ; — that we are not really 
thereby acquiring a truer knowledge of the hidden things 
of God, but are measuring Him by a standard derived 
from the limited representations of man. ( 3 °) 

Subordinate to the Conception of Special Providence, and 
subject to the same laws of thought in its application, is 
that of Miraculous Agency. I am not now going to waste 
an additional argument in answer to that shallowest and 
crudest of all the assumptions of unbelief, which dictatorially 
pronounces that Miracles are impossible ; — an assumption 
which is repudiated by the more philosophical among the 
leaders of Rationalism itself; ( 31 ) and which implies, that he 
who maintains it has such a perfect and intimate acquaint- 
ance with the Divine Nature and Purposes, as to warrant 
him in asserting that God cannot or will not depart from 
the ordinary course of His Providence on any occasion 
whatever. If, as I have endeavored to show, the doctrine 
of Divine Interposition is not in itself more opposed to rea- 
son than that of General Law ; and if the asserted immuta- 
bility of the laws of nature is, at the utmost, tenable only 
on the supposition that material nature alone is spoken of, 
— we are not warranted, on any ground, whether of de- 
duction from principles or of induction from experience, in 
denying the possible suspension of the Laws of Matter by 
the will of the Divine Mind. But the question on which it 
may still be desirable to say a few words, before concluding 
this portion of my argument, is one which is disputed, not 
necessarily between the believer and the unbeliever, but 



178 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VI. 

often between believers equally sincere and equally pious, 
differing only in their modes of representing to their own 
minds the facts and doctrines which both accept. Granting, 
that is to say, that variations from the established sequence 
of physical phenomena may take place, and have taken 
place, as Scripture bears witness ; — are such variations to 
be represented as departures from or suspensions of natural 
law ; or rather, as themselves the result of some higher law 
to us unknown, and as miraculous only from the point of 
view of our present ignorance ? ( 32 > 

Which of these representations, or whether either of 
them, is the true one, when such occurrences are considered 
in their relation to the Absolute Nature of God, our igno- 
rance of that Nature forbids us to determine. Speculatively, 
to human understanding, it appears as little consistent with 
the nature of the Absolute and Infinite, to be subject to 
universal law, as it is to act at particular moments. But as 
a regulative truth, adapted to the religious wants of man's 
constitution, the more natural representation, that of a de- 
parture from the general law, seems to be also the more 
accurate. We are liable, in considering this question, to 
confound together two distinct notions under the equivocal 
name of Law. The first is a positive notion, derived from 
the observation of facts, and founded, with various modifi- 
cations, upon the general idea of the periodical recurrence 
of phenomena. The other is a merely negative notion, de- 
duced from a supposed apprehension of the Divine Nature, 
and professing to be based on the idea of the eternal Pur- 
poses of God. Of the former, the ideas of succession and 
repetition form an essential part. To the latter, the idea of 
Time, in any form, has no legitimate application ; and it is 
thus placed beyond the sphere of human thought. Now, 
when we speak of a Miracle as the possible result of some 



Lect. VI. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 179 

higher law, do we employ the terra law in the former sense, 
or in the latter ? do Ave mean, a law which actually exists in 
the knowledge of God ; or one which, in the progress of 
science, may come to the knowledge of man ? — =one which 
might be discovered by a better acquaintance with the Di- 
vine Counsels, or one which might be inferred from a larger 
experience of natural phenomena ? If we mean the former, 
we do not know that a more perfect acquaintance with the 
Divine Counsels, implying, as it does, the elevation of our 
faculties to a superhuman level, might not abolish the con- 
ception of Law altogether. If we mean the latter, we as- 
sume that which no experience warrants us in assuming ; we 
endanger the religious significance and value of the miracle, 
only for the sake of removing God a few degrees further 
back from that chain of phenomena which is admitted ulti- 
mately to depend upon Him. A miracle, in one sense, need 
not be necessarily a violation of the laws of nature. God 
may make use of natural instruments, acting after their 
kind ; as man himself, within his own sphere, does in the 
production of artificial combinations. The great question, 
however, still remains : Has God ever, for religious purposes, 
exhibited phenomena in certain relations, which the ob- 
served course of nature, and the artistic skill of man, are 
unable to bring about, or to account for ? 

I have thus far endeavored to apply the principle of the 
Limits of Religious Thought to some of these representa- 
tions which are usually objected to by the Rationalist, as in 
apparent opposition to the Speculative Reason of Man. In 
my next Lecture, I shall attempt to pursue the same argu- 
ment, in relation to those doctrines which are sometimes 
regarded as repugnant to man's Moral Reason. The lesson 
to be derived from our present inquiry may be given in the 
pregnant sentence of a great philosopher, but recently taken 



180 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VI. 

from us : " No difficulty emerges in Theology, which had 
not previously emerged in Philosophy." < 33 ) The intellectual 
stumblingblocks, which men find in the doctrines of Reve- 
lation, are not in consequence of any improbability or er- 
ror peculiar to the things revealed; but are such as the 
thinker brings with him to the examination of the question; 
— such as meet him on every side, whether he thinks with 
or against the testimony of Scripture ; being inherent in the 
constitution and laws of the Human Mind itself. But must 
we therefore acquiesce in the melancholy conclusion, that 
self-contradiction is the law of our intellectual being ; — that 
the light of Reason, which is God's gift, no less than Reve- 
lation, is a delusive light, which we follow to our own de- 
ception ? Far from it : the examination of the Limits of 
Thought leads to a conclusion the very opposite to this. 
Reason does not deceive us, if we will only read her witness 
aright ; and Reason herself gives us warning, when we are 
in danger of reading it wrong. The light that is within us 
is not darkness ; only it cannot illuminate that which is be- 
yond the sphere of its rays. The self-contradictions, into 
which we inevitably fall, when we attempt certain courses 
of speculation, are the beacons placed by the hand of God 
in the mind of man, to warn us that we are deviating from 
the track that He designs us to pursue ; that we are striving 
to pass the barriers which He has planted around us. The 
flaming sword turns every way against those who strive, in 
the strength of their own reason, to force their passage to 
the tree of life. Within her own province, and among her 
own objects, let Reason go forth, conquering and to conquer. 
The finite objects, which she can clearly and distinctly con- 
ceive, are her lawful empire and her true glory. The count- 
less phenomena of the visible world; the unseen things 
which lie in the depths of the human soul ; — these are given 



Lect. VI. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 181 

into her hand ; and over them she may reign in unquestioned 
dominion. But when she strives to approach too near to 
the hidden mysteries of the Infinite; — when, not content 
with beholding afar off the partial and relative manifesta- 
tions of God's presence, she w T ould " turn aside and see this 
great sight," and know w r hy God hath revealed Himself 
thus; — the voice of the Lord Himself is heard, as it were, 
speaking in warning from the midst : " Draw not nigh 
hither : put off thy shoes from off thy feet ; for the place 
whereon thou standest is holy ground." 1 

1 Exodus iii. 5. 
16 



LECTURE VII. 

YET YE SAY, THE WAY OF THE LORD IS NOT EQUAL. HEAR NOW, 
O HOUSE OF ISRAEL; IS NOT MY WAY EQUAL? ARE NOT YOUR 
WAYS UNEQUAL?— EZEKIEL XVIII. 25. 

" If I build again the things which I destroyed, I make 
myself a transgressor." l This text might be appropriately- 
prefixed to an examination of that system of moral and 
religious criticism which, at the close of the last century, 
succeeded for a time in giving a philosophical connection 
to the hitherto loose and floating theological rationalism 
of its age and country. (*) It was indeed a marvellous 
attempt to send forth from the same fountain sweet waters 
and bitter, to pull down and to build up by the same act 
and method. The result of the Critical Philosophy, as 
applied to the speculative side of human Reason, was to 
prove beyond all question the existence of certain neces- 
sary forms and laws of Intuition and thought, which 
impart a corresponding character to all the objects of 
which Consciousness, intuitive or reflective, can take cog- 
nizance. Consciousness was thus exhibited as a Relation 
between the human mind and its object ; and this conclu- 
sion, once established, is fatal to the very conception of a 
Philosophy of the Absolute. But by an inconsistency 
scarcely to be paralleled in the history of philosophy, the 
author of this comprehensive criticism attempted to de- 
duce a partial conclusion from universal premises, and to 

* Galatians ii. 18. 



LECT. VII. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 183 

exempt the speculations of moral and religious thought 
from the relative character with which, upon his own prin- 
ciples, all the products of human consciousness were neces- 
sarily invested. The Moral Law, and the ideas which it 
carries with it, are, according to this theory, not merely 
facts of human consciousness, conceived under the laws of 
human thought, but absolute, transcendental realities, 
implied in the conception of all Reasonable Beings as 
such, and therefore independent of the law of time, and 
binding, not on man as man, but on all possible intelligent 
beings, created or uncreated. < 2 ) The Moral Reason is thus 
a source of absolute and unchangeable realities ; while the 
Speculative Reason is concerned only with phenomena, or 
things modified by the constitution of the human mind. ( s > 
As a corollary to this theory, it follows, that the law of 
human morality must be regarded as the measure and 
adequate representative of the moral nature of God; — in 
fact, that our knowledge of the Divine Being is identical 
with that of our own moral duties; — for God is made 
known to us, as existing at all, only in and by the moral 
reason : we do not look upon actions as binding because 
they are commanded by God ; but we know them to be 
divine commands because w r e are bound by them. ( 4 ) 
Applying these principles to the criticism of Revealed 
Religion, the philosopher maintains that no code of laws 
claiming divine authority can have any religious value, 
except as approved by the moral reason ; < 5 ) that there can 
be no duties of faith or practice towards God, distinct from 
the moral obligations which reason enjoins ; < 6 ) and that, 
consequently, every doctrine to which this test is inapplica- 
ble is either no part of revelation at all, or at best can only 
be given for local and temporary purposes, of which the 
enlightened reason need no longer take any account. (") 



184 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VII. 

Amid much that is true and noble in this teaching when 
confined within its proper limits, its fundamental weakness 
as an absolute criterion of religious truth is so manifest as 
hardly to need exposure. The fiction of a moral law bind- 
ing in a particular form upon all possible intelligences, 
acquires this seeming universality, only because human 
intelligence is made the representative of all. I can con- 
ceive moral attributes only as I know them in conscious- 
ness : I can imagine other minds only by first assuming 
their likeness to my own. To construct a theory, whether 
of practical or of speculative reason, which shall be valid 
for other than human intelligences, it is necessary that the 
author should himself be emancipated from the conditions 
of human thought. Till this is done, the so-called Abso- 
lute is but the Relative under another name : the universal 
consciousness is but the human mind striving to transcend 
itself. 

The very characteristics of Universality and Necessity, 
with which our moral obligations are invested, point to an 
origin the very reverse of that which the above theory sup- 
poses. For these characteristics are in all cases due to the 
presence of the formal and personal element in the phenom- 
ena of consciousness, and appear most evidently in those 
conceptions in which the matter as well as the manner of 
thinking is drawn from the laws or formal conditions of 
experience. Of these conditions, I have in a former Lecture 
enumerated three — Time, Space, and Personality; the first 
as the condition of human consciousness in general : the 
second and third as the conditions of the same conscious- 
ness in relation to the phenomena of matter and of mind 
respectively. ( 8 ) From these are derived three correspond- 
ing systems of necessary truths in the highest human sense 
of the term: the science of Numbers beins; connected with 



Lect. VII THOUGHT EXAMINED. 185 

the condition of Time ; that of Magnitudes with Space ; 
and that of Morals with Personality. These three sciences 
rest on similar bases, and are confined within the same 
limits : all being equally necessary and valid within the 
legitimate bounds of human intelligence ; and all equally 
negative and self-contradictory, when we attempt to pass 
beyond those bounds. The contradictions involved in the 
conceptions of Infinite Number and Infinite Magnitude 
find their parallel when we attempt to conceive the attri- 
butes of an Infinite Morality : the necessity which is man- 
ifested in the finite relations of the two former is the coun- 
terpart of that which accompanies those of the latter. ( 9 > 
That Moral Obligation, conceived as a law binding upon 
man, must be regarded as immutable so long as man's 
nature remains unchanged, is manifest from the character 
of the conception itself, and follows naturally from a 
knowledge of its origin. An act of Duty is presented to 
my consciousness as enjoined by a Law whose obligation 
upon myself is directly and intuitively discerned. It thus 
differs essentially from the phenomena of external nature, 
whose laws are not immediately perceived, but inferred 
from the observed recurrence of facts. The immediate con- 
sciousness of Law unavoidably carries with it the convic- 
tion of necessity and immutability in relation to the agent 
who is subject to it. For to suppose that a moral law 
can be reversed or suspended in relation to myself; — to 
suppose a conviction of right unaccompanied by an obliga- 
tion to act, or a conviction of wrong unaccompanied by an 
obligation to forbear, — is to suppose a reversal of the con- 
ditions of my personal existence ; — a supposition which 
annihilates itself; since those conditions are implied in the 
attempt to conceive my personal existence at all. The 
Moral Sense is thus, like the intuitions of Time and Space, 

16* 



186 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VU 

an a priori law of the human mind, not determined by 
experience as it is, but determining beforehand what expe- 
rience ought to be. But it is not thereby elevated above the 
conditions of human intelligence ; and the attempt so to 
elevate it is especially inadmissible in that philosophy 
which resolves Time and Space into forms of the human 
consciousness, and limits their operation to the field of the 
phenomena and the relative. 

That there is an Absolute Morality, based upon, or 
rather identical with, the Eternal Nature of God, is indeed 
a conviction forced upon us by the same evidence as that 
on which we believe that God exists at all. But what that 
Absolute Morality is, Ave are as unable to fix in any human 
conception, as we are to define the other attributes of the 
same Divine Nature. To human conception it seems im- 
possible that absolute morality should be manifested in the 
form of a law of obligation / for such a law implies rela- 
tion and subjection to the authority of a lawgiver. And as 
all human morality is manifested in this form, the conclu- 
sion seems unavoidable, that human morality, even in its 
highest elevation, is not identical with, nor adequate to 
measure, the Absolute Morality of God. ( 10 ) 

A like conclusion is forced upon us by a closer examina- 
tion of human morality itself. To maintain the immuta- 
bility of moral principles in the abstract is a very different 
thing from maintaining the immutability of the particular 
acts by which those principles are manifested in practice. 
The parallel between the mathematical and the moral sci- 
ences, as systems of necessary truth, holds good in this 
respect also. As principles in the abstract, the laws of 
morality are as unchangeable as the axioms of geometry. 
That duty ought in all cases to be followed in preference to 
inclination, is as certain a truth as that two straight lines 



Lect. VII THOUGHT EXAMINED. 187 

cannot enclose a space. In their concrete application, both 
principles are equally liable to error ; — we may err in sup- 
posing a particular visible line to be perfectly straight ; as 
we may err in supposing a particular act to be one of 
duty. ( n ) But the two errors, though equally possible, are 
by no means equally important. For mathematical science, 
as such, is complete in its merely theoretical aspect ; while 
moral science is valuable chiefly in its application to prac- 
tice. It is in their concrete form that moral principles are 
adopted as guides of conduct and canons of judgment; 
and in this form they admit of various degrees of uncer- 
tainty or of positive error. But the difference between 
the highest and the lowest conception of moral duty is one 
of degree, not of kind; the interval between them is oc- 
cupied by intermediate stages, separated from each other 
by minute and scarcely appreciable differences ; and the 
very conception of a gradual progress in moral enlighten- 
ment implies the possibility of a further advance, of a 
more exalted intellect, and a more enlightened conscience. 
While we repudiate, as subversive of all morality, the the- 
ory which maintains that each man is the measure of his 
own moral acts ; we must repudiate also, as subversive of 
all religion, the opposite theory, which virtually maintains 
that man may become the measure of the absolute Nature 
of God. 

God did not create Absolute Morality : it is coeternal 
with Himself; and it were blasphemy to say that there 
ever was a time when God was and Goodness was not. 
But God did create the human manifestation of morality, 
when He created the moral constitution of man, and placed 
him in those circumstances by which the eternal principles 
of right and wrong are modified in relation to the present 
life. ( 12 ) For it is manifest, to take the simplest instances, 
that the sixth Commandment of the Decalogue, in its lit- 



188 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VII. 

eral obligation, is relative to that state of things in which 
men are subject to death; and the seventh, to which there 
is marrying and giving in marriage ; and the eighth, to 
that in which men possess temporal goods. It is manifest, 
to take a more general ground, that the very conception 
of moral obligation implies a superior authority, and an 
ability to transgress what that authority commands ; that 
it implies a complex, and therefore a limited nature in the 
moral agent ; the intellect, which apprehends the duty, 
being distinct from the will, which obeys or disobeys. 
That there is a higher and unchangeable principle em- 
bodied in these forms, we have abundant reason to be- 
lieve ; and yet we cannot, from our present point of view, 
examine the same duties apart from their human element, 
and separate that which is relative and peculiar to man in 
this life from that which is absolute and common to all 
moral beings. In this respect, again, our moral concep- 
tions offer a remarkable analogy to the cognate phenom- 
ena on which other systems of necessary truth are based. 
Take, for example, the idea of Time, the foundation of 
the science of Number. We find no difficulty in conceiv- 
ing that this present world was created at some definite 
point of time ; but we are unable to conceive the same mo- 
ment as the creation of Time itself. On the contrary, we 
are compelled to believe that there was a time before as 
well as after the creation of the world : that the being of 
God reaches back in boundless duration beyond the mo- 
ment when He said, Let there be light ; and there was 
light. But when we attempt to unite this conviction with 
another, necessary to the completion of the thought; — 
w T hen we try to conceive God as an Infinite Being, exist- 
ing in continuous duration, — the contradictions, which 
beset us on every side, admonish us that we have trans- 
cended the boundary within which alone human thought is 



Lect. VII. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 189 

possible. And so, too, while we are competent to believe 
that the creation of man's moral nature was not identical 
with the creation of morality itself; — that the great prin- 
ciples of all that is holy and righteous existed in God, be- 
fore they assumed their finite form in the heart of man ; 
— we still find ourselves baffled in every attempt to con- 
ceive an infinite moral nature, or its condition, an infinite 
personality : we find ourselves compelled to walk by faith, 
and not by sight ; — to admit that we have knowledge 
enough to guide us in our moral training here ; but not 
enough to unveil the hidden things of God.( 13 ) 

In so far, then, as Morality, in its human character, depends 
upon conditions not coeternal with God, but created along 
with man, in so far we are not justified in regarding the oc- 
casional suspension of human duties, by the same authority 
which enacted them, as a violation of the immutable princi- 
ples of morality itself. That there are limits, indeed, within 
which alone this rule can be safely applied; — that there 
are doctrines and practices which carry on their front 
convincing proof that they cannot have been revealed or 
commanded by God ; — that there are systems of religion 
which by this criterion may be shown to have sprung, not 
from divine appointment, but from human corruption, — is 
not for an instant denied. In my concluding Lecture, I 
shall endeavor to point out some of the conditions under 
which this kind of evidence is admissible. For the present, 
my argument is concerned, not with special and occasional 
commands, but with universal and perpetual doctrines ; not 
with isolated facts recorded in sacred history, but with re- 
vealed truths, forming an integral portion of religious be- 
lief. In this point of view, I propose to apply the principle 
hitherto maintained, of the Limits of Religious Thought, to 
the examination of those doctrines of the Christian Faith 



190 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VII. 

which are sometimes regarded as containing something 
repugnant to the Moral Reason of man. 

The Atoning Sacrifice of Christ has been the mark as- 
assailed by various attacks of this kind ; some of them not 
very consistent with each other, but all founded on some 
supposed incongruity between this doctrine and the moral 
attributes of the Divine Nature. By one critic, the doc- 
trine is rejected because it is more consistent with the in- 
finite mercy of God to pardon sin freely, without any atone- 
ment whatsoever. < 14 ) By another, because, from the un- 
changeable nature of God's laws, it is impossible that sin can 
be pardoned at all. < 15 ) A third maintains that it is unjust 
that the innocent should suffer for the sins of the guilty. ( 16 ) 
A fourth is indignant at the supposition that God can be 
angry; ( 17 ) while a fifth cannot see by what moral fitness 
the shedding of blood can do away with sin or its punish- 
ment. ( 18 ) The principle which governs these and similar 
objections is, that we have a right to assume that there is, 
if not a perfect identity, at least an exact resemblance be- 
tween the moral nature of man and that of God ; that the 
laws and principles of infinite justice and mercy are but 
magnified images of those which are manifested on a finite 
scale ; — that nothing can be compatible with the boundless 
goodness of God, which is incompatible with the little good- 
ness of which man may be conscious in himself. 

The value of this principle, as an absolute criterion of re- 
ligious truth, may be tested by the simple experiment of 
applying the same reasoning to an imaginary revelation 
constructed on the rational principles of some one of the 
objectors. Let us suppose, then, that, instead of the Chris- 
tian doctrine of the Atonement, the Scriptures had told us 
of an absolute and unconditional pardon of sin, following 
upon the mere repentance of the sinner. It is easy to im- 



LECT. VII. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 191 

agine ho\\ r ready our reasoning theologians would be with 
their philosophical criticism, speculative or moral. Does it 
not, they might say, represent man as influencing God, — 
the Finite as controlling, by the act of repentance, the un- 
changeable self-determinations of the Infinite ? Does it not 
depict the Deity as acting in time, as influenced by mo- 
tives and occasions, as subject to human feelings ? Does 
it not tend to weaken our impression of the hatefulness of 
sin, and to encourage carelessness in the sinner, by the easy 
terms on which he is promised forgiveness ? < 19 ) If it is un- 
worthy of God to represent Him as angry and needing to 
be propitiated, how can philosophy tolerate the conception 
that He is placable, and to be softened by repentance ? And 
what moral fitness has repentance to do away with the guilt 
or punishment of a past transgression ? Whatever moral 
fitness there exists between righteousness and God's favor, 
the same must exist between sin and God's anger : in what- 
ever degree that which deserves punishment is not pun- 
ished, in that degree God's justice is limited in its opera- 
tion. A strictly moral theory requires, therefore, not free 
forgiveness, bat an exactly graduated proportion between 
guilt and suffering, virtue and happiness. < 2 °) If, on the 
other hand, we maintain that there is no moral fitness in 
either case, we virtually deny the existence of a moral 
Deity at all : we make God indifferent to good and evil 
as such : we represent Him as rewarding and punishing 
arbitrarily and with respect of persons. The moral objec^ 
tion, in truth, so far as it has any weight at all, has no 
special application to the Christian doctrine : it lies against 
the entire supposition of the remission of sins on any terms 
and by any means : and if it has been more strongly urged 
by Rationalists against the Christian representation than 
against others, this is merely because the former has hacl 



192 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VII. 

the misfortune to provoke hostility by being found in the 
Bible. 

It is obvious indeed, on a moment's reflection, that the 
duty of man to forgive the trespasses of his neighbor, rests 
precisely upon those features of human nature which can- 
not by any analogy be regarded as representing an image 
of God. ( 21 ) Man is not the author of the moral law : he is 
not, as man, the moral governor of his fellows : he has no 
authority, merely as man, to punish moral transgressions as 
such. It is not as sin, but as injury, that vice is a trans- 
gression against man : it is not that his holiness is outraged, 
but that his rights or his interests are impaired. The duty 
of forgiveness is imposed as a check, not upon the justice, 
but upon the selfishness of man : it is not designed to ex- 
tinguish his indignation against vice, but to restrain his 
tendency to exaggerate his own personal injuries. ( 22 > The 
reasoner maintains, " it is a duty in man to forgive sins, 
therefore it must be morally fitting for God to forgive 
them also," overlooks the fact that this duty is binding 
upon man on account of the weakness and ignorance and 
sinfulness of his nature ; that he is bound to forgive, as one 
who himself needs forgiveness ; as one whose weakness 
renders him liable to suffering ; as one whose self-love is 
ever ready to arouse his passions and pervert his judgment. 

Nor yet would the advocates of the Moral Reason gain 
anything in Theology by the substitution of a rigid system 
of reward and punishment, in which nothing is forgiven, 
but every act meets with its appropriate recompense. We 
have only to suppose that this were the doctrine of Revela- 
tion, to imagine the outcry with which it would be assailed. 
"It is moral," the objector might urge, "only in the harsher 
and less amiable features of human morality : it gives us 
a God whom we may fear, but whom we cannot love ; 



LECr. Y1L THOUGHT EXAMINED. 193 

who has given us affections with which He has no sym- 
pathy, and passions for whose consequences He allows no 
redress : who created man liable to fall, and placed him in 
a world of temptations, knowing that he would fall, and 
purposing to take advantage of his frailty to the utmost." 
Criticisms of this kind may be imagined without number ; 
— nay, they are actually found in more than one modern 
work, the writers of which have erroneously imagined that 
they were assailing the real teaching of Scripture. ( 23 ) Ver- 
ily, this vaunted Moral Reason is a " Lesbian rule." (^ It 
may be applied with equal facility to the criticism of every 
possible scheme of Divine Providence ; and therefore we 
may be permitted to suspect that it is not entitled to im- 
plicit confidence against any. ( 25 ) 

The endless controversy concerning Predestination and 
Free Will, whether viewed in its speculative or in its moral 
aspect, is but another example of the hardihood of human 
ignorance. The question, as I have observed before, has 
its philosophical as well as its theological aspect : it has no 
difficulties peculiar to itself: it is but a special form of the 
fundamental mystery of the coexistence of the Infinite and 
the Finite. Yet, with this mystery meeting and baffling 
human reason at every turn, theologians have not scrupled 
to trace in their petty channels the exact flow and course 
of Infinite wisdom ; one school boldly maintaining that 
even Omniscience itself has no knowledge of contingent 
events ; another asserting, with equal confidence, that God's 
knowledge must be a restraint on man's freedom. ( 26 > If 
philosophy offers for the moment an apparent escape from 
the dilemma, by suggesting that God's knowledge is not 
properly foreknowledge, as having no relation to time ; W 
the suggestion itself is one which can neither be verified as a 
truth, nor even intelligibly exhibited as a thought ; and the 

17 



194 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VII. 

Rationalist evades the solution by shifting the ground of at- 
tack, and retorts that Prophecy at least is anterior to the 
event which it foretells ; and that a prediction of human ac- 
tions is irreconcilable with freedom. ( 28 ) But the w^hole mean- 
ing of the difficulty vanishes, as soon as we acknowledge that 
the Infinite is not an object of human thought at all. There 
can be no consciousness of a relation, w r hether of agreement 
or of opposition, where there is not a consciousness of both 
the objects related. That a man, by his own power, should 
be able with certainty to foretell the future, implies that 
the law r s of that future are fixed and unchangeable ; for man 
can only foresee particular occurrences through a knowl- 
edge of the general law on which they depend. But is 
this relation of cause to effect, of law to its consequences, 
really a knowledge or an ignorance ? Is the causal rela- 
tion itself a law of things, or only a human mode of repre- 
senting phenomena ? Supposing it were possible for man, 
in some other state of intelligence, to foresee a future event 
without foreseeing it as the result of a law, — would that 
knowledge be a higher or a lower one than he at present 
possesses ? — would it be the removal of some reality which 
he now sees, or only of some limitation under which he 
now sees it ? < 29 ) Man can only foresee what is certain ; 
and from his point of view, the foreknowledge depends 
upon the certainty. But, apart from the human con- 
ditions of thought, in relation to a more perfect intelli- 
gence, can we venture to say, even as regards temporal 
succession, whether necessity is the condition of foreknowl- 
edge, or foreknowledge of necessity, or whether indeed 
necessity itself has any existence at all ? < 3 °) May not the 
w r hole scheme of Law and Determinism indicate a weak- 
ness, rather than a power of the human mind ; and are 
there not facts of consciousness which give some support 



Lect. VII. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 195 

to this conjecture ? < 31 ) Can anything be necessary to an 
intellect whose thought creates its own objects ? Can any 
necessity of things determine the cognitions of the Abso- 
lute Mind, even if those cognitions take place in succession 
to each other ? These questions admit of no certain an- 
swer ; but the very inability to answer them proves that 
dogmatic decisions on either side are the decisions of io;no- 
ranee, not of knowledge. 

But the problem, be its difficulties and their origin what 
they may, is not peculiar to Theology, and receives no 
additional complication from its position in Holy Writ. 
The very same question may be discussed in a purely met- 
aphysical form, by merely substituting the universal law 
of causation for the universal knowledge of God. What is 
the meaning and value of that law of the human mind 
which apparently compels us to think that every event 
whatever has its determining cause? And how is that 
conviction reconcilable with a liberty in the human will to 
choose between two alternatives? The answer is substan- 
tially the same as before. The freedom of the will is a 
positive fact of our consciousness: as for the princij^le 
of causality, we know not whence it is, nor what it is. 
We know not whether it is a law of things, or a mode of 
human representation; whether it denotes an impotence 
or a power; whether it is innate or acquired. We know 
not in what the causal relation itself consists ; nor by what 
authority we are warranted in extending its significance 
beyond the temporal sequence which suggests it and the 
material phenomena in which that sequence is undisturbed. 

And is not the same conviction of the ignorance of man, 
and of his rashness in the midst of ignorance, forced upon 
us by the spectacle of the arbitrary and summary decisions 
of human reason on the most mysterious as well as the 



196 LIMITS OE RELIGIOUS Lect. VII. 

most awful of God's revealed judgments against sin, — the 
sentence of Eternal Punishment ? We know not what is 
the relation of Sin to Infinite Justice. We know not 
under what conditions, consistently with the freedom of 
man, the final restoration of the impenitent sinner is possi- 
ble ; nor how, without such a restoration, guilt and misery 
can ever cease. We know not whether the future punish- 
ment of sin will be inflicted by way of natural consequence 
or of supernatural visitation ; whether it will be produced 
from within or inflicted from without. We know not how 
man can be rescued from sin and suffering without the 
cooperation of his own will ; nor what means can coop' 
erate with that will, beyond those which are offered to alJ 
of us during our state of trial. < 32 ) It becomes us to speak 
cautiously and reverently on a matter of which God ha? 
revealed so little, and that little of such awful moment J 
but if we may be permitted to criticize the arguments of 
the opponents of this doctrine with the same freedom with 
which they have criticized the ways of God, we may re« 
mark that the whole apparent force of the moral objec< 
tion rests upon two purely gratuitous assumptions. It is 
assumed, in the first place, that God's punishment of sin in 
the world to come is so far analogous to man's administra- 
tion of punishment in this world, that it will take place as 
a special infliction, not as a natural consequence. And it 
is assumed, in the second place, that punishment will be 
inflicted solely with reference to the sins committed dur- 
ing the earthly life; — that the guilt will continue finite, 
while the misery is prolonged to infinity. ( 33 ) Are we then* 
so sure, it may be asked, that there can be no sin beyond, 
the grave ? Can any immortal soul incur God's wrath and 
condemnation, only so long as it is united to a mortal 
body? With as much reason might we assert that the 



Lect. VII THOUGHT EXAMINED 197 

angels are incapable of obedience to God, that the devils 
are incapable of rebellion. What if the sin perpetuates 
itself, — if the prolonged misery be the offspring of the 
prolonged guilt ? ( 34 ) 

Against this it is unxecl that sin cannot forever be trium- 
phant against God. ( 35 ) As if the whole mystery of ini- 
quity were contained in the words for ever! The real rid- 
dle of existence — the problem which confounds all philoso- 
phy, aye, and all religion too, so far as religion is a thing 
of man's reason — is the fact that evil exists at all/ not 
that it exists for a longer or a shorter duration. Is not 
God infinitely wise and holy and powerful noio? and does 
not sin exist along with that infinite holiness and wisdom 
and power? Is God to become more holy, more wise, 
more powerful hereafter; and must evil be annihilated to 
make room for His perfections to expand? Does the 
infinity of His eternal nature ebb and flow with every 
increase or diminution in the sum of human guilt and mis- 
ery ? Against this immovable barrier of the existence of 
evil, the waves of philosophy have dashed themselves un- 
ceasingly since the birthday of human thought, and have 
retired broken and powerless, without displacing the mi- 
nutest fragment of the stubborn rock, without softening 
one feature of its dark and rugged surface. < 36 ) We may 
be told that evil is a privation, or a negation, or a partial 
aspect of the universal good, or some other equally un- 
meaning abstraction ; whilst all the while our own hearts 
bear testimony to its fearful reality, to its direct antagonism 
to every possible form of good. < 37 ) But this mystery, vast 
and inscrutable as it is, is but one aspect of a more gen- 
eral problem ; it is but the moral form of the ever-recurring 
secret of the Infinite. How the Infinite and the Finite, in 
any form of antagonism or other relation, can exist to- 

17* 



198 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VII. 

gether; how infinite power can coexist with finite activ- 
ity; how infinite wisdom can coexist with finite contin- 
gency ; how infinite goodness can coexist with finite evil ; 
how the Infinite can exist in any manner without ex- 
hausting the universe of reality ; — this is the riddle which 
Infinite Wisdom alone can solve, the problem whose very 
conception belongs only to that Universal Knowing which 
fills and embraces the Universe of Being. When philoso- 
phy can answer this question ; w^hen she can even state 
intelligibly the notions which its terms involve, — then, 
and not till then, she may be entitled to demand a solution 
of the far smaller difficulties which she finds in revealed 
religion ; — or rather, she will have solved them already ; 
for from this they all proceed, and to this they all ulti- 
mately return. 

The reflections which this great and terrible mystery of 
Divine Judgment have suggested, receive perhaps some 
further support when we contemplate it in another aspect, 
and one more legitimately within the province of human 
reason ; that is to say, in its analogy to the actual con- 
stitution and course of nature. " The Divine moral govern- 
ment which religion teaches us," says Bishop Butler, " im- 
plies that the consequence of vice shall be misery, in some 
future state, by the righteous judgment of God. That 
such consequent punishment shall take effect by His ap- 
pointment,' is necessarily implied. But, as it is not in any 
sort to be supposed that we are made acquainted with all 
the ends or reasons, for which it is fit future punishment 
should be inflicted, or why God has appointed such and 
such consequent misery should follow vice ; and as we are 
altogether in the dark, how or in what manner it shall fol- 
low, by what immediate occasions, or by the instrumental- 
ity of what means, — there is no absurdity in supposing 



LECT. VII. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 199 

it may follow in a way analogous to that in which many 
miseries follow such and such courses of action at present : 
poverty, sickness, infamy, untimely death from diseases, 
death from the hands of civil justice. There is no absurd- 
ity in supposing future punishment may follow wickedness 
of course, as we speak, or in the way of natural conse- 
quence from God's original constitution of the world ; from 
the nature He has given us, and from the condition in 
which He places us ; or in a like manner as a person rashly 
trifling upon a precipice, in the way of natural conse- 
quence, falls down ; in the way of natural consequence, 
breaks his limbs, suppose ; in the way of natural conse- 
quence of this, without help perishes." (3S) 

And if we may be permitted to extend the same anal- 
ogy from the constitution of external nature to that of 
the human mind, may we not trace something not wholly 
unlike the irrevocable sentence of the future, in that dark 
and fearful, yet too certain law of our nature, by which 
sin and misery ever tend to perpetuate themselves; by 
which evil habits gather strength with every fresh indul- 
gence, till it is no longer, humanly speaking, in the power 
of the sinner to shake off the burden which his own deeds 
have laid upon him ? In that mysterious condition of the 
depraved will, compelled, and yet free, — the slave of sin- 
ful habit, yet responsible for every act of sin, and gather- 
ing deeper condemnation as the power of amendment 
grows less and less, — may we not see some possible fore- 
shadowing of the yet deeper guilt and the yet more hope- 
less misery of the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is 
not quenched? The fact, awful as it is, is one to which 
our every day's experience bears witness : and who shall 
say that the invisible things of God may not, in this as in 
other instances, be shadowed forth to us in the things that 
are seen ? 



200 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VII. 

The same argument from analogy is indeed applicable 
to every one of the difficulties which Rationalism professes 
to discover in the revealed ways of God's dealings with 
man. The Fall of Adam, and the inherited corruption of 
his posterity, find their parallel in the liability to sin which 
remains unextinguished throughout man's moral progress ; 
and in that mysterious, though certain dispensation of 
Providence, which ordains that not only bodily taints and 
infirmities, but even moral dispositions and tendencies 
should, in many instances, descend from father to son; 
and which permits the child of sinful parents to be de- 
praved by evil example, before he knows how, by his own 
reason, clearly to discern between right and wrong; before 
he has strength, of his own will, to refuse the evil and 
choose the good < 39 ) There is a parallel, too, in that 
strange, yet too familiar fact, of vice persisted in, with the 
clearest and strongest conviction of its viciousness and 
wretchedness ; and the skepticism which denies that man, 
if created sinless, could so easily have fallen from inno- 
cence, finds its philosophical counterpart in the paradox 
of the ancient moralist, who maintained that conscious sin 
is impossible, because nothing can be stronger than knowl- 
edge. < 4 °) Justification by faith through the merits of 
Christ is at least in harmony with that course of things 
established by Divine Providence in this world ; in which 
so many benefits, which we cannot procure for ourselves or 
deserve by any merit of our own, are obtained for us by 
the instrumentality of others; and in which we are so 
often compelled, as an indispensable condition of obtain- 
ing the benefit, to trust in the power and good-will of 
those whom we have never tried, and to believe in the 
efficacy of means whose manner of working we know 
not. < 41 ) The operations of Divine Grace, influencing, yet 



Lect. VII. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 201 

not necessitating, the movements of the human soul, find 
their corresponding fact and their corresponding mystery 
in the determinations of the Will; — in that Freedom to 
do or leave undone, so certain in fact, so inexplicable in 
theory, which consists neither in absolute indifference nor 
in absolute subjection ; which is acted upon and influenced 
by motives, yet in its turn acts upon and controls their in- 
fluences, prevented by them, and yet working with them. ( 42 ) 
But it is unnecessary to pursue further an argument which, 
in all its essential features, has already been fully exhibited 
by a philosopher whose profound and searching wisdom 
lias answered by anticipation nearly every cavil of the 
latest form of Rationalism, no less than those of his own 
day. We may add here and there a detail of application, 
as the exigencies of controversy may suggest; but the 
principle of the whole, and its most important conse- 
quences, have been established and worked out more than 
a century ago, in the unanswerable argument of Butler. 

The warning which his great work contains against 
"that idle and not very innocent employment of forming 
imaginary models of a world, and schemes of governing 
it," ( 43 ) is as necessary now as then, as applicable to moral 
as to speculative theories. Neither with regard to the 
physical nor to the moral world, is man capable of con- 
structing a Cosmogony ; and those Babels of Reason, 
which Philosophy has built for itself under the names of 
Rational Theories of Religion, and Criticisms of every 
Revelation, are but the successors of those elder children 
of chaos and night, which, with no greater knowledge, 
but with less presumption, sought to describe the gener- 
ation of the visible universe. It is no disparagement of 
the value and authority of the Moral Reason in its regu- " 
lative capacity, within its proper sphere of human action, 



202 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VII. 

if we refuse to exalt it to the measure and standard of the 
Absolute and Infinite Goodness of God. The very Philos- 
opher whose writings have most contributed to establish 
the supreme authority of Conscience in man, is also the 
one who has pointed out most clearly the existence of 
analogous moral difficulties in nature and in religion, and 
the true answer to both, — the admission that God's Gov- 
ernment, natural as well as spiritual, is a scheme imper- 
fectly comprehended. 

In His Moral Attributes, no less than in the rest of His 
Infinite Being, God's judgments are unsearchable, and His 
ways past finding out. 1 While He manifests Himself 
clearly as a Moral Governor and Legislator, by the witness 
of the Moral Law which He has established in the hearts 
of men, we cannot help feeling, at the same time, that that 
Law, grand as it is, is no measure of His Grandeur, that 
He Himself is beyond it, though not opposed to it, dis- 
tinct, though not alien from it. We feel that He who 
planted in man's conscience that stern, unyielding Impera- 
tive of Duty, must Himself be true and righteous alto- 
gether; that He from whom all holy desires, all good coun- 
sels, and all just works do proceed, must Himself be more 
holy, more good, more just than these. But when we try 
to realize in thought this sure conviction of our faith, we 
find that here, as everywhere, the Finite cannot fathom 
the Infinite ; that, while in our hearts we believe, yet our 
thoughts at times are sore troubled. It is consonant to 
the whole analogy of our earthly state of trial, that, in this 
as in other features of God's Providence, we should meet 
with things impossible to understand and difficult to be- 
lieve ; by which reason is baffled and faith tried; — acts 
whose purpose we see not; dispensations whose wisdom is 

1 Komans xi. 33. 



LeCT. VII. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 203 

above us; thoughts which are not our thoughts, and ways 
which are not our ways. In these things we hear, as it 
were, the same loving voice which spoke to the wondering 
disciple of old: "What I do, thou knowest not now; but 
thou shalt know hereafter." 1 The luminary by whose 
influence the ebb and flow of man's moral being is regu- 
lated, moves around and along with man's little world, in 
a regular and bounded orbit ; one side, and one side only, 
looks downward upon its earthly centre; the other, which 
we see not, is ever turned upwards to the all-surrounding 
Infinite. And those tides have their seasons of rise and 
fall, their places of strength and weakness ; and that light 
waxes and wanes with the growth or decay of man's men- 
tal and moral and religious culture ; and its borrowed rays 
seem at times to shine as with their own lustre, in rivalry, 
even in opposition, to the source from which they emanate. 
Yet is that light still but a faint and partial reflection of 
the hidden glories of the Sun of Righteousness, waiting 
but the brighter illumination of His presence, to fade and 
be swallowed up in the full blaze of the heaven kindling 
around it; — not cast down indeed from its orbit, nor 
shorn of its true brightness and influence, but still felt and 
acknowledged in its real existence and power, in the mem- 
ory of the past discipline, in the product of the present 
perfectness, though now distinct no more, but vanishing 
from sight to be made one with the Glory that beams from 
the "Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, 
neither shadow of turning." 2 

1 St. John xiii. 7. 2 St. James i. 17. 



LECTURE VIII. 



THE WORKS WHICH THE FATHER HATH GIVEN ME TO FINISH, THE 
SAME WORKS THAT I DO, BEAR WITNESS OF ME, THAT THE FA- 
THER HATH SENT ME. — ST. JOHN V. 36. 



To construct a complete Criticism of any Revelation, it 
is necessary that the Critic should be in possession of a per- 
fect Philosophy of the Infinite, For, except on the sup- 
position that we possess an exact knowledge of the whole 
Nature of God, such as only that Philosophy can furnish, 
we cannot know for certain what are the purposes which 
God intends to accomplish by means of Revelation, and 
what are the instruments by which those purposes may be 
best carried out. If then it can be shown, as I have at- 
tempted to show in the previous Lectures, that the attain- 
ment of a Philosophy of the Infinite is utterly impossible 
under the existing laws of human thought, it follows that 
it is not by means of philosophical criticism that the claims 
of a supposed Revelation can be adequately tested. We 
are thus compelled to seek another field for the right use 
of Reason in religious questions ; and what that field is, it 
will not be difficult to determine. To Reason, rightly em- 
ployed, within its proper limits and on its proper objects, 
our Lord himself and his Apostles openly appealed in proof 
of their divine mission ; and the same proof has been un- 
hesitatingly claimed by the defenders of Christianity in all 
subsequent ages. In other words, the legitimate object of 



Lect. VIII. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 205 

a rational criticism of revealed religion, is not to be found 
in the contents of that religion, but in its evidences. 

At first sight it may appear as if this distinction involved 
no real difference; for the contents of a revelation, it might 
be objected, are included among its evidences. In one 
sense, no doubt they are ; but that very inclusion gives 
them a totally different significance and weight from that 
to which they lay claim when considered as the basis of a 
philosophical criticism. In the one case, they are judged 
by their conformity to the supposed nature and purposes of 
God ; in the other, by their adaptation to the actual circum- 
stances and wants of man. In the one case they are re- 
garded as furnishing a single and a certain criterion ; for 
on the supposition that our reason is competent to deter- 
mine, from our knowledge of the Divine Nature, what the 
characteristics of a true Revelation ought to be, we are 
entitled, by virtue of that criterion alone, to reject without 
hesitation whatever does not satisfy its requirements. In 
the other case, they are regarded as furnishing only one 
probable presumption out of many ; — a presumption which 
may confirm and be confirmed by coinciding testimony from 
other sources, or, on the contrary, may be outweighed, when 
we come to balance probabilities, by conflicting evidence on 
the other side. 

The practical conclusion, which may be deduced from 
the whole previous survey of the Limits of Religious 
Thought, is this : that if no one faculty of the human 
mind is competent to convey a direct knowledge of the 
Absolute and the Infinite, no one faculty is entitled to 
claim preeminence over the rest, as furnishing especially 
the criterion of the truth or falsehood of a supposed Reve- 
lation. There are presumptions to be drawn from the in- 
ternal character of the doctrines which the revelation con- 

18 



206 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VIII. 

tains : there are presumptions to be drawn from the facts 
connected with its first promulgation : there are presump- 
tions to be drawn from its subsequent history and the 
effects which it has produced among mankind. But the 
true evidence, for or against the religion, is not to be 
found in any one of these taken singly and exclusively ; 
but in the resultant of all, fairly examined and compared 
together ; the apparently conflicting evidences being bal- 
anced against each other, and the apparently concurring 
evidences estimated by their united efficacy. 

A truth so obvious as this may be thought hardly worth 
announcing as the result of an elaborate inquiry. But the 
whole history of religious controversy bears witness that, 
however evident in theory, there is no truth more liable to 
be neglected in practice. The defenders of Christianity 
are not altogether free from the charge of insisting ex- 
clusively or preeminently upon some one alone of its evi- 
dences : the assailants, under the influence of a still more 
exclusive reaction, have assumed that a method which fails 
to accomplish everything has succeeded in accomplishing 
nothing ; and, flying at once to the opposite extreme, have 
in their turn appealed to some one infallible criterion, as 
constituting a royal road to philosophical unbelief. 

In the present day we are feeling the pernicious effects 
of a reaction of this kind. Because the writings of Paley 
and his followers in the last generation laid a principal 
stress on the direct historical evidences of Christianity, we 
meet now with an antagonist school of writers, who per- 
petually assure us that history has nothing whatever to do 
with religion ; (*) that an external revelation of religious 
truth is impossible ; ( 2 ) that we may learn all that is essen- 
tial to the Gospel by inward and spiritual evidence only. ( 3 ) 
In the spirit of the Pharisees of old, who said, " This man 



Lect. VIII. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 207 

is not of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath day," 1 
we are now told that the doctrine must in all cases prove 
the miracles, and not the miracles the doctrine ; ( 4 ) that 
the external evidence of miracles is entirely useless for the 
support of the religious philosophy of Christ ; < 5 ) that man 
no more needs a miraculous revelation of things pertaining 
to religion than of things pertaining to agriculture or man- 
ufactures. < 6 ) And, as is usually the case in such reactions, 
the last state has become worse than the first ; — a slight 
comparative neglect of the internal evidence on the one 
side has been replaced by an utter repudiation of all ex- 
ternal evidence on the other ; a trifling disproportion in 
the edifice of the Christian Faith has been remedied by 
the entire removal of some of its main pillars of support. 
The crying evil of the present day in religious controversy 
is the neglect or contempt of the external evidences of 
Christianity: the first step towards the establishment of a 
sound religious philosophy must consist in the restoration 
of those evidences to their true place in the Theological 
system. 

The evidence derived from the internal character of a 
religion, whatever may be its value within its proper limits, 
is, as regards the divine origin of the religion, purely nega- 
tive. It may prove in certain cases (though even here 
the argument requires much caution in its employment) 
that a religion has not come from God ; but it is in no case 
sufficient to prove that it has come from Him. (") For the 
doctrines revealed must either be such as are within the 
power of man's natural reason to verify, or such as are be- 
yond it. In the former case, the reason which is com- 
petent to verify may also be competent to discover: the 
doctrine is tested by its conformity to the conclusions of 

1 St. John ix. 16. 



208 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. YIIL 

human philosophy ; and the wisdom which sits in judg- 
ment on the truth of a doctrine must itself be presumed 
to have an equal power of discerning the truth. In the 
latter case, where the doctrine is beyond the power of 
human reason to discover, it can be accepted only as rest- 
ing on the authority of the teacher who proclaims it ; and 
that authority itself must then be guaranteed by the ex- 
ternal evidence of a superhuman mission. To advance a 
step beyond the merely negative argument, it is necessary 
that the evidence contained in the character of the doc- 
trine itself should be combined with that derived from the 
exterior history. When, for example, the Divine Origin of 
Christianity is maintained, on the ground of its vast moral 
superiority to all Heathen systems of Ethics ; or on that 
of the improbability that such a system could have been 
conceived by a Galilean peasant among the influences of 
the contemporary Judaism ; the argument is legitimate 
and powerful : but its positive force depends not merely 
on the internal character of the doctrine, but principally 
on its relation to certain external facts. ( 8 ) 

And even the negative argument, which concludes from 
the character of the contents of a religion that it can- 
not have come from God, however legitimate within its 
proper limits, is one which requires considerable caution in 
the application. The lesson to be learnt from an examina- 
tion of the Limits of Religious Thought, is not that man's 
judgments are worthless in relation to divine things, but 
that they are fallible; and the probability of error in any 
particular case can never be fairly estimated, without giv- 
ing their full weight to all collateral considerations. We 
are indeed bound to believe that a Revelation given by 
God can never contain anything that is really unwise or 
unrighteous ; but we are not always capable of estimating 



LECT. VIII. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 209 

exactly the wisdom or righteousness of particular doctrines 
or precepts. And we are bound to bear in mind that ex- 
actly in proportion to the strength of the remaining evi- 
dence for the divine origin of a religion, is the probability 
that ice may be mistaken in supposing this or that portion 
of its contents to be unworthy of God. Taken in conjunc- 
tion, the two arguments may confirm or correct each other : 
taken singly and absolutely, each may vitiate the result 
which should follow from their joint application. We do 
not certainly know the exact nature and operation of the 
moral attributes of God; we can but infer and conjecture 
from what we know of the moral attributes of man : and 
the analogy between the Finite and the Infinite can never 
be so perfect as to preclude all possibility of error in the 
process. But the |>ossibility becomes almost a certainty, 
when any one human faculty is elevated by itself into an 
authoritative criterion of religious truth, without regard 
to those collateral evidences by which its decisions may be 
modified and corrected. 

"The human mind," says a writer of the present day, "is 
competent to sit in moral and spiritual judgment on a 
professed revelation ; and to decide, if the case seems to 
require it, in the following tone : This doctrine attributes 
to God, that which we should all call harsh, cruel, or unjust 
in man : it is therefore intrinsically inadmissible." ..." In 
fact," he continues, "all Christian apostles and mission- 
aries, like the Hebrew prophets, have always refuted Pagan- 
ism by direct attacks on its immoral and un spiritual doc- 
trines ; and have appealed to the consciences of heathens, 
as competent to decide in the controversy." ( 9 ) Now, an 
appeal of this kind may be legitimate or not, according to 
the purpose for which it is made, and the manner in which 
it is applied. The primary and proper employment of 

18* 



210 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VIII. 

man's moral sense, as of his other faculties, is not specula- 
tive, but regulative. It is not designed to tell us what are 
the absolute and immutable principles of Right, as existing 
in the eternal nature of God ; but to discern those relative 
and temporary manifestations of them, which are neces- 
sary for human training in this present life. But if moral- 
ity, in its human manifestation, contains a relative and 
temporary, as well as an absolute and eternal element, an 
occasional suspension of the human Law is by no means to 
be confounded with a violation of the divine Principle. 
We can only partially judge of the Moral government of 
God, on the assumption that there is an analogy between 
the divine nature and the human: and in proportion as 
the analogy recedes from perfect likeness, the decisions of 
the human reason necessarily become more and more 
doubtful. The primary and direct inquiry, which human 
reason is entitled to make concerning a professed revela- 
tion is, — how far does it tend to promote or to hinder the 
moral discipline of man. It is but a secondary and indi- 
rect question, and one very liable to mislead, to ask how 
far it is compatible with the Infinite Goodness of God. 

Thus, for example, it is one thing to condemn a religion 
on account of the habitual observance of licentious or inhu- 
man rites of worship, and another to pronounce judgment 
on isolated acts, historically recorded as having been done 
by divine command, but not perpetuated in precepts for 
the imitation of posterity. The former are condemned for 
their regulative character, as contributing to the perpetual 
corruption of mankind ; the latter are condemned on spec- 
ulative grounds, as inconsistent with our preconceived 
notions of the character of God. " There are some par- 
ticular precepts in Scripture," says Bishop Butler, "given 
to particular persons, requiring actions, which would be 



Lect. VIII. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 211 

immoral and vicious, were it not for such precepts. But it 
is easy to see, that all these are of such a kind, as that the 
precept changes the whole nature of the case and of the 
action ; and both constitutes and shows that not to be 
unjust or immoral, which, prior to the precept, must have 
appeared, and really have been so : which may well be, 
since none of these precepts are contrary to immutable 
morality. If it were commanded to cultivate the princi- 
ples and act from the spirit of treachery, ingratitude, 
cruelty ; the command would not alter the nature of the 
case or of the action, in any of these instances. But it is 
quite otherwise in precepts which require only the doing 
an external action ; for instance, taking away the property 
or life of any. For men have no right to either life or 
property, but what arises solely from the grant of God: 
when this grant is revoked, they cease to have any right 
at all in either : and when this revocation is made known, 
as surely it is possible it may be, it must cease to be unjust 
to deprive them of either. And though a course of exter- 
nal acts, which without command would be immoral, must 
make an immoral habit; yet a few detached commands 
have no such natural tendency. . . . There seems no diffi- 
culty at all in these precepts, but what arises from their 
being offences : i. e. from their being liable to be perverted, 
as indeed they are, by wicked designing men, to serve 
the most horrid purposes; and, perhaps, to mislead the 
weak and enthusiastic. And objections from this head are 
not objections against revelation ; but against the w x hole 
notion of religion, as a trial ; and against the general con- 
stitution of nature." ( 10 ) 

There is indeed an obvious analogy between these tem- 
porary suspensions of the laws of moral obligation and that 
corresponding suspension of the laws of natural phenomena 



212 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VIII. 

which constitutes our ordinary conception of a Miracle. 
So much so, indeed, that the former might without impro- 
priety be designated as Moral Miracles. In both, the 
Almighty is regarded as suspending, for special purposes, 
not the eternal laws which constitute His own absolute 
Nature, but the created laws, which he imposed at a cer- 
tain time upon a particular portion of his creatures. Both 
are isolated and rare in their occurrence ; and apparently, 
from the nature of the case, must be so, in order to unite 
harmoniously with the normal manifestations of God's gov- 
ernment of the world. A perpetual series of physical mira- 
cles would destroy that confidence in the regularity of the 
course of nature, which is indispensable to the cultivation 
of man's intellectual and productive energies: a permanent 
suspension of practical duties would be similarly prejudi- 
cial to the cultivation of his moral character. But the 
isolated character of both classes of phenomena removes 
the objection which might otherwise be brought against 
them on this account: and this objection is the only one 
W T hich can legitimately be urged, on philosophical grounds, 
against the conception of such cases as possible; as dis- 
tinguished from the historical evidence, which may be ad- 
duced for or against their actual occurrence. 

Even within its own legitimate province, an argument 
of this kind may have more or less weight, varying from 
the lowest presumption to the highest moral certainty, 
according to the nature of the offence which we believe 
ourselves to have detected, and the means which we 
possess of estimating its character or consequences. It 
is certain that we are not competent judges of the Abso- 
lute Nature of God: it is not certain that we are com- 
petent judges, in all cases, of what is best fitted for the 
moral discipline of man. But granting to the above argu- 



LECT. VIII. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 213 

ment its full value in this relation, it is still important to 
remember that we are dealing, not with demonstrative but 
with probable evidence; not with a single line of reasoning, 
but with a common focus, to which many and various rays 
converge ; that we have not solved the entire problem, 
but only obtained one of the elements contributing to its 
solution. And the combined result of all these elements 
is by no means identical with the sum of their separate 
effects. The image, hitherto employed, of a balance of 
probabilities, is, in one respect at least, very inadequate to 
express the character of Christian evidence. It may be 
used with some propriety to express the provisional stage 
of the inquiry, while w r e are still uncertain to which side 
the evidence inclines ; but it becomes inapplicable as soon 
as our decision is made. For the objections urged against 
a religion are not like the weights in a scale, which retain 
their full value, even when outweighed on the other side ; 
— on the contrary, they become absolutely worthless, as 
soon as we are convinced that there is superior evidence to 
prove that the religion is true. We may not say, for exam- 
ple, that certain parts of the Christian scheme are unwise 
or unrighteous, though outweighed by greater acts of 
righteousness and wisdom; — we are bound to believe 
that we were mistaken from the first in supposing them to 
be unwise or unrighteous at all. In a matter of which we 
are so ignorant and so liable to be deceived, the objection 
which fails to prove everything proves nothing : from him 
that hath not, is taken away even that which he seemeth 
to have. And on the other hand, the objection which 
really proves anything proves everything. If the teaching 
of Christ is in any one thing not the teaching of God, it is 
in all things the teaching of man : its doctrines are subject 
to all the imperfections inseparable from man's sinfulness 



214 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect VITL 

and ignorance : its effects must be such as can fully be 
accounted for as the results of man's wisdom, with all its 
weakness and all its error. 

Here then is the issue, which the wavering disciple is 
bound seriously to consider. Taking into account the vari- 
ous questions whose answers, on the one side or the other, 
form the sum total of Evidences for or against the claims 
of the Christian Faith ; — the genuineness and authenticity 
of the documents ; the judgment and good faith of the 
writers ; the testimony to the actual occurrence of prophe- 
cies and miracles, and their relation to the religious teaching 
with which they are connected; the character of the Teacher 
Himself, that one protrait, which, in its perfect purity 
and holiness and beauty, stands alone and unapproached 
in human history or human fiction ; those rites and cere- 
monies of the elder Law, so significant as typical of Christ, 
so strange and meaningless without Him ; those predictions 
of the promised Messiah, whose obvious meaning is rendered 
still more manifest by the futile ingenuity w 7 hich strives to 
pervert them;( n ) the history of the rise and progress of 
Christianity, and its comparison with that of other religions ; 
the ability or inability of human means to bring about the re- 
sults which it actually accomplished ; its antagonism to the 
current ideas of the age and country of its origin ; its effects 
as a system on the moral and social condition of subsequent 
generations of mankind ; its fitness to satisfy the wants and 
console the sufferings of human nature ; the character of 
those by whom it was first promulgated and received ; the 
sufferings which attested the sincerity of their convictions ; 
the comparative trustworthiness of ancient testimony and 
modern conjecture ; the mutual contradictions of conflicting 
theories of unbelief, and the inadequacy of all of them to 
explain the facts for which they are bound to account ; — 



Lect. VIII. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 215 

taking all these and similar questions into full considera- 
tion, are you prepared to affirm, as the result of the whole 
inquiry, that Jesus of Nazareth was an impostor, or an en- 
thusiast, or a mythical figment ; and his disciples crafty 
and designing, or well-meaning, but deluded men ? For be 
assured, that nothing short of this is the conclusion which 
you must maintain, if you reject one jot or one tittle of the 
whole doctrine of Christ. Either He was what He pro- 
claimed Himself to be, — the incarnate Son of God, the 
Divine Saviour of a fallen world — and if so, we may not 
divide God's Revelation, and dare to put asunder what He 
has joined together, — or the civilized world for eighteen 
centuries has been deluded by a cunningly devised fable ; 
and He from whom that fable came has turned that world 
from darkness to light, from Satan to God, with a lie in His 
ristfit hand. 

Many who would shrink with horror from the idea of re- 
jecting Christ altogether, will yet speak and act as if they 
were at liberty to set up for themselves an eclectic Christi- 
anity ; separating the essential from the superfluous por- 
tions of Christ's teaching ; deciding for themselves how 
much is permanent and necessary for all men, and how 
much is temporary and designed only for a particular age 
and people. < 12 ) Yet if Christ is indeed God manifest in the 
flesh, it is surely scarcely less impious to attempt to im- 
prove His teaching, than to reject it altogether. Nay, in 
one respect it is more so ; for it is to acknowledge a doc- 
trine as the revelation of God, and at the same time to pro- 
claim that it is inferior to the wisdom of man. That it 
may indeed come, and has come, within the purposes of 
God's Providence, to give to mankind a Revelation partly 
at least designed for a temporary purpose, and for a limited 
portion of mankind ; — a Law in which something was per- 



216 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VIII. 

mitted to the hardness of men's hearts, 1 and much was 
designed but as a shadow of things to come; 2 — this we 
know, to whom a more perfect Revelation has been given. 
But to admit that God may make His own Revelation 
more perfect from time to time, is very different from ad- 
mitting that human reason, by its own knowledge, is com- 
petent to separate the perfect from the imperfect, and to 
construct for itself an absolute religion out of the fragments 
of an incomplete Revelation. The experiment has been 
tried under the elder and less perfect dispensation ; but the 
result can hardly be considered so successful as to encour- 
age a repetition of the attempt. The philosophical im- 
provement of the Hebrew Scriptures produced, not the 
Sermon on the Mount, but the Creed of the Sadducee. 
The ripened intelligence of the Jewish people, instructed, 
as modern critics would assure us, by the enlightening in- 
fluence of time, and by intercourse with foreign nations, 
bore fruit in a conclusion singularly coinciding with that of 
modern rationalism : " The Sadducees say that there is no 
resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit." 3 ( 13 > And doubtless 
there were many then, as now, to applaud this wonderful 
discovery, as a proof that " religious truth is necessarily 
progressive, because our powers are progressive;"* 14 ) and 
to find a mythical or critical theory, to explain or to set 
aside those passages of Scripture which appeared to incul- 
cate a contrary doctrine. Unfortunately for human wis- 
dom, Prometheus himself needs a Prometheus. The lapse 
of time, as all history bears witness, is at least as fruit- 
ful in corruption as in enlightenment ; and reason, when 
it has done its best, still needs a higher reason to decide 
between its conflicting theories, and to tell us which is the 
advanced, which the retrograde Theology. < 15 ) 

l St. Matthew xix. 8. * Hebrews x. 1. 3 Acts xxiii. 8. 



Lect. VIII. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 217 

In one respect, indeed, this semi-rationalism, which ad- 
mits the authority of Revelation up to a certain point and 
no further, rests on a far less reasonable basis than the firm 
belief which accepts the whole, or the complete unbelief 
which accepts nothing. For whatever may be the antece- 
dent improbability which attaches to a miraculous narra- 
tive, as compared with one of ordinary events, it can affect 
only the narrative taken as a whole, and the entire series 
of miracles from the greatest to the least. If a single mir- 
acle is once admitted as supported by competent evidence, 
the entire history is at once removed from the ordinary 
calculations of more or less probability. One miracle is 
sufficient to show that the series of events, with which it 
is connected, is one which the Almighty has seen fit to 
mark by exceptions to the ordinary course of His Provi- 
dence : and this being once granted, we have no a priori 
grounds to warrant us in asserting that the number of such 
exceptions ought to be larger or smaller. If any one mira- 
cle recorded in the Gospels — the Resurrection of Christ, 
for example — be once admitted as true, the remainder 
cease to have any antecedent improbability at all, and re- 
quire no greater evidence to prove them than is needed for 
the most ordinary events of any other history. For the 
improbability, such as it is, reaches no further than to 
show that it is unlikely that God should work miracles at 
all ; not that it is unlikely that He should work more than 
a certain number. 

Our right to criticize at all depends upon this one ques- 
tion : "What think ye of Christ? whose Son is He?" 1 
What is it that constitutes our need of Christ ? Is it a 
conviction of guilt and wretchedness, or a taste for Philos- 
ophy ? Do w r e want a Redeemer to save us from our sins, 

i St. Matthew xxii. 42. 
19 



218 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VIII. 

or a moral Teacher to give us a plausible theory of human 
duties? Christ can be our Redeemer only if He is what 
He proclaims himself to be, the Son of God, sent into the 
world, that the world through Him might be saved. 1 If 
He is not this, His moral teaching began with falsehood, 
and was propagated by delusion. And if He is this, what 
but contempt and insult can be found in that half-allegk 
ance which criticizes while it bows ; which sifts and selects 
while it submits ; which approves or rejects as its reason 
or its feelings or its nervous sensibilities may dictate; 
which condescends to acknowledge Him as the teacher 
of a dark age and an ignorant people ; bowing the knee 
before Him, half in reverence, half in mockery, and crying, 
" Hail, King of the Jews ! " If Christ is a mere human 
teacher, we of this nineteenth century can no more be 
Christians than we can be Platonists or Aristotelians. He 
belongs to that past which cannot repeat itself; His modes 
of thought are not ours ; His difficulties are not ours ; His 
needs are not ours. He may be our Teacher, but not our 
Master; for no man is master over the free thoughts of 
his fellow-men : we may learn from him, but we sit in 
judgment while we learn ; w r e modify his teaching by the 
wisdom of later ages ; we refuse the evil and choose the 
good. But remember that we can do this, only if Christ 
is a mere human teacher, or if we of these latter days have 
received a newer and a better revelation. If now, as of 
old, He speaks as never man spake ; 2 — if God, who at sun- 
dry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto 
the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken 
unto us by His Son, 3 — what remains for us to do but to 
cast down imaginations, and every high thing that exalt- 
eth itself against the knowledge of God, and to bring into 

i St. John iii. 17. 2 St. John vii. 46. 3 Hebrews i. 1, 2. 



Lect. VIII. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 219 

captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ ? l The 
witness which Christ offers of Himself either proves every 
thing or it proves nothing. No man has a right to say, "I 
will accept Christ as I like, and reject him as I like ; I will 
follow the holy Example ; I will turn away from the aton- 
ing Sacrifice ; I will listen to His teaching ; I will have 
nothing to do with His mediation; I will believe Him 
when He tells me that He came from the Father, because 
I feel that His doctrine has a divine beauty and fitness ; 
but I will not believe Him when He tells me that He is 
one with the Father, because I cannot conceive how this 
unity is possible." This is not philosophy, which thus 
mutilates man ; this is not Christianity, which thus divides 
Christ. < 16 ) If Christ is no more than one of us, let us hon- 
estly renounce the shadow of allegiance to an usurped 
authority, and boldly proclaim that every man is his own 
Redeemer. If Christ is God, no less than man, let us 
beware, lest haply we be found even to fight against God. 2 
Beyond question, every doubt which our reason may 
suggest in matters of religion is entitled to its due place 
in the examination of the evidences of religion ; if we will 
treat it as a part only and not the whole ; if we will not 
insist on a positive solution of that which, it may be, is 
given us for another purpose than to be solved. It is 
reasonable to believe that, in matters of belief as well as 
of practice, God has not thought fit to annihilate the 
free will of man ; but has permitted speculative difficul- 
ties to exist as the trial and the discipline of sharp and 
subtle intellects, as he has permitted moral temptations to 
form the trial and the discipline of strong and eager pas- 
sions. ( 17 ) Our passions are not annihilated when we resist 
the temptation to sin: why should we expect that our 

i 2 Corinthians x. 5. 2 Acts v. 39. 



220 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VIII. 

doubts must be annihilated if we are to resist the tempta- 
tion to unbelief? This correspondence of difficulties is so 
far from throwing doubt on the divine origin of Revela- 
tion, that it rather strengthens the proof that it has ema- 
nated from that Giver whose other gifts are subject to like 
conditions. We do not doubt that the conditions of our 
moral trial tend towards good and not towards evil ; that 
human nature, even in its fallen state, bears traces of the 
image of its Maker, and is fitted to be an instrument in 
His moral government. And we believe this, notwith- 
standing the existence of passions and appetites which, 
isolated and uncontrolled, appear to lead in an opposite 
direction. Is it then more reasonable to deny that a sys- 
tem of revealed religion, whose unquestionable tendency 
as a whole is to promote the glory of God and the welfare 
of mankind, can have proceeded from the same Author, 
merely because we may be unable to detect the same char- 
acter in some of its minuter features, viewed apart from 
the system to which they belong ? 

It would of course be impossible now to enter upon any 
detailed examination of the positive Evidences of Chris- 
tianity. The purpose of the foregoing Lectures will have 
been answered, if they can only succeed in clearing the 
way for a candid and impartial inquiry ; by showing what 
are the limits within which it must be confined, and what 
kind of reasoning is inadmissible, as transgressing those 
limits. The conclusion, which an examination of the con- 
ditions of human thought unavoidably forces upon us, is 
this : There can be no such thing as a positive science of 
Speculative Theology; for such a science must necessarily 
be based on an apprehension of the Infinite; and the 
Infinite, though we are compelled to believe in its exist- 
ence, cannot be positively apprehended in any mode of 



Lect. VIII. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 221 

the human Consciousness. The same impediment which 
prevents the formation of Theology as a science, is also 
manifestly fatal to the theory which asserts its progressive 
development. We can test the progress of knowledge, 
only by comparing its successive representations with the 
objects which they profess to represent: and as the object 
in this case is inaccessible to human faculties, we have no 
criterion by which to distinguish between progress and 
mere fluctuation. The so-called progress in Theology is in 
truth only an advance in those conceptions of man's moral 
and religious duties which form the basis of natural re- 
ligion ; — an advance which is regulative and not specula- 
tive ; which is primarily and properly a knowledge, not of 
God's nature, but of man's obligations ; and which is the 
result, not of an immediate intuition of the Nature of the 
Infinite, but of a closer study of the Laws of the Finite. 
A progress of this kind can obviously have no place in 
relation to those truths, if such there be, which human 
reason is incapable of discovering for itself: and to assert 
its applicability to the criticism o£ Revealed Religion, is 
to beg the entire question in dispute, by assuming, without 
the slightest authority, that Revelation cannot he anything 
more than a republication of Natural Religion. ( 18 ) 

But, on the other hand, there is an opposite caution no 
less needed, in making use of the counter-theory, which 
regards the doctrines of Revelation as truths accommo- 
dated to the finite capacities of man ; as serving for regu- 
lative, not for speculative knowledge ; and as not amenable 
to any criticism based on human representations of the 
Infinite. This theory is useful, not as explaining the diffi- 
culties involved in religious thought, but as showing why 
we must leave them unexplained; not as removing the 
mysteries of revelation, but as showing why such myste- 

19* 



222 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VIII. 

ries must exist. This caution has not always been suffi- 
ciently observed, even by those theologians who have 
shown the most just appreciation of the limits of man's 
faculties in the comprehension of divine things. Thus, to 
mention an example of an ancient method of interpreta- 
tion which has been revived with considerable ability and 
effect in modern times, — the rule, that the Attributes 
ascribed to God in Scripture must be understood as denot- 
ing correspondence in Effects, but not similarity of Causes, 
is one which is liable to considerable misapplication: it 
contains indeed a portion of truth, but a portion which is 
sometimes treated as if it were the whole. " Affectus in 
Deo," says Aquinas, " denotat effectum : " ( 19 ) and the canon 
has been applied by a distinguished Prelate of our own 
Church, in language probably familiar to many of us. 
"The meaning," says Archbishop King, "confessedly is, 
that He will as certainly punish the wicked as if He were 
inflamed with the passion of anger against them ; that He 
will as infallibly reward the good, as we will those for 
whom we have a particular and affectionate love ; that 
wdien men turn from their wickedness, and do what is 
agreeable to the divine command, He will as surely change 
His dispensations towards them, as if He really repented, 
and had changed His mind." < 2 °) 

This is no doubt a portion of the meaning; but is it the 
whole ? Does Scripture intend merely to assert a resem- 
blance in the effects and none at all in the causes ? If so, 
it is difficult to see why the natural rule of accommoda- 
tion should have been reversed ; why a plain and intelli- 
gible statement concerning the Divine Acts should have 
been veiled under an obscure and mysterious image of the 
Divine Attributes. If God's Anger means no more than 
His infliction of punishments ; if His Love means no more 



Lect. VIII. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 223 

than His bestowal of rewards ; it would surely have been 
sufficient to have told us that God punishes sin and re- 
wards obedience, without the interposition of a fictitious 
feeling as the basis of the relation. The conception of a 
God who acts, is at least as human as that of a God who 
feels; and though both are but imperfect representations, 
of the Infinite under finite images, yet, while both rest 
upon the same authority of Scripture, it is surely going 
beyond the limits of a just reserve in speaking of divine 
mysteries, to assume that the one is merely the symbol, 
and the other the interpretation. It is surely more reason- 
able, as well as more reverent, to believe that these partial 
representations of the Divine Consciousness, though, as 
finite, they are unable speculatively to represent the Abso- 
lute Nature of God, have yet each of them a regulative 
purpose to fulfil in the training of the mind of man : that 
there is a religious influence to be imparted to us by the 
thought of God's Anger, no less than by that of His Pun- 
ishments ; by the thought of His Love, no less than by 
that of His Benefits : that both, inadequate and human as 
they are, yet dimly indicate some corresponding reality in 
the Divine Nature ; and that to merge one in the other is 
not to gain a purer representation of God as He is, but 
only to mutilate that under which He has been pleased to 
reveal Himself. < 21 ) 

It is obvious indeed that the theory of an adaptation of 
divine truths to human faculties, entirely changes its sig- 
nificance, as soon as we attempt to give a further adapta- 
tion to the adapted symbol itself; to modify into a still 
lower truth that which is itself a modification of a higher. 
The instant we undertake to say that this or that specula- 
tive or practical interpretation is the only real meaning of 
that which Scripture represents to us under a different 



224 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VIII. 

image, we abandon at once the supposition of an accom- 
modation to the necessary limits of human thought, and 
virtually admit that the ulterior significance of the repre- 
sentation falls as much within those limits as the represen- 
tation itself. ( 22 ) Thus interpreted, the principle no longer 
offers the slightest safeguard against Rationalism ; — nay, 
it becomes identified with the fundamental vice of Ration- 
alism itself, — that of explaining away what we are unable 
to comprehend. 

The adaptation for which I contend is one which admits 
of no such explanation. It is not an adaptation to the 
ignorance of one man, to be seen through by the superior 
knowledge of another ; but one which exists in relation to 
the whole human race, as men, bound by the laws of man's 
thought ; as creatures of time, instructed in the things of 
eternity; as finite beings, placed in relation to and com- 
munication with the Infinite. I believe that Scripture 
teaches, to each and all of us, the lesson which it was 
designed to teach, so long as we are men upon earth, and 
not as the angels in heaven. ( 23 ) I believe that " now we 
see through a glass darkly," — in an enigma ; — but that 
now is one which encompasses the whole race of mankind, 
from the cradle to the grave, from the creation to the 
day of judgment: that dark enigma is one which no 
human wisdom can solve; which Reason is unable to 
penetrate; and which Faith can only rest content with 
here, in hope of a clearer vision to be granted hereafter. 
If there be any who think that the Laws of Thought 
themselves may change with the changing knowledge of 
man ; that the limitations of Subject and Object, of Dura- 
tion and Succession, of Space and Time, belong to the 
vulgar only, and not to the philosopher; — if there be any 
who believe that they can think without the consciousness 



Lect. VIII. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 225 

of themselves as thinking, or of anything about which they 
think; that they can be in such or such a mental state, 
and yet for no period of duration ; that they can remem- 
ber this state and make subsequent use of it, without con- 
ceiving it as antecedent, or as standing in any order of 
time to their present consciousness; that they can reflect 
upon God without their reflections following each other, 
without their succeeding to any earlier or being succeeded 
by any later state of mind ; — if there be any who main- 
tain that they can conceive Justice and Mercy and Wis- 
dom, as neither existing in a merciful and just and wise 
Being, nor in any way distinguishable from each other , — 
if there be any who imagine that they can be conscious 
without variety, or discern without differences ; — these, 
and these alone, may aspire to correct Revelation by the 
aid of Philosophy ; for such alone are the conditions under 
which Philosophy can attain to a rational knowledge of 
the Infinite God. 

The intellectual difficulties which Rationalism discovers 
in the contents of Revelation (I do not now speak of those 
which belong to its external evidences) are such as no sys- 
tem of Rational Theology can hope to remove ; for they 
are inherent in the constitution of Reason itself. Our 
mental laws, like our moral passions, are designed to serve 
the purposes of our earthly culture and discipline ; both 
have their part to perform in moulding the intellect and 
the will of man through the slow stages of that training 
here, whose completion is to be looked for hereafter. 
Without the possibility of temptation, where would be the 
merit of obedience? Without room for doubt, where 
would be the righteousness of faith ? ( 24 ) But there is no 
temptation which taketh us, as Christians, but such as is 



226 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VIII. 

common to man ; 1 and there is no doubt that taketh us 
but such as is common to man also. It is the province of 
Philosophy to teach us this ; and it is the province of Re- 
ligion to turn the lesson to account. The proud definition 
of ancient sages, which bade the philosopher, as a lover of 
wisdom, strive after the knowledge of things divine and 
human, would speak more soberly and more truly by 
enjoining a Knowledge of things human, as subservient 
and auxiliary to Faith in things divine. ( 25 ) Of the Nature 
and Attributes of God in His Infinite Being, Philosophy 
can tell us nothing : of man's inability to apprehend that 
Nature, and why he is thus unable, she tells us all that we 
can know, and all that we need to know. " Know thy- 
self," was the precept inscribed in the Delphic Temple, as 
the best lesson of Heathen wisdom. ( 26 ) " Know thyself," 
was the exhortation of the Christian Teacher to his disci- 
ple, adding, " if any man know himself, he will also know 
God." ( 27 ) He will at least be content to know so much of 
God's nature as God Himself has been pleased to reveal ; 
and, where Revelation is silent, to worship without seek- 
ing to know more. 

Know thyself in the various elements of thy intellectual 
and moral being : all alike will point reverently upward to 
the throne of the Invisible ; but none will scale that throne 
itself, or pierce through the glory which conceals Him that 
sitteth thereon. Know thyself in thy powers of Thought, 
which, cramped and confined on every side, yet bear wit- 
ness, in their very limits, to the Illimitable beyond. Know 
thyself in the energies of thy Will, which, free and yet 
bound, the master at once and the servant of Law, bows 
itself under the imperfect consciousness of a higher Law- 
giver, and asserts its freedom but by the permission of the 

i Corinthians x. 13. 



LECT. VIII. THOUGHT EXAMINED. 227 

Almighty. Know thyself in the yearnings of thy Affec- 
tions, which, marvellously adapted as they are to their 
several finite ends, yet testify in their restlessness to the 
deep need of something better. < 28 ) Know thyself in that 
fearful and wonderful system of Human Nature as a whole, 
which is composed of all these, and yet not one with any 
nor with all of them ; — that system to whose inmost 
centre and utmost circumference the whole system of 
Christian Faith so strangely yet so fully adapts itself. It 
is to the whole Man that Christianity appeals : it is as a 
Whole and in relation to the whole Man that it must be 
judged. < 29 ) It is not an object for the thought alone, nor 
for the will alone, nor for the feelings alone. It may not 
be judged by reference to this petty cavil or that minute 
scruple : it may not be cut down to the dimensions and 
wants of any single ruling principle or passion. We have 
no right to say that we will be Christians as far as pleases 
us, and no further; that we will accept or reject, according 
as our understanding is satisfied or perplexed. ( 3 °) The 
tree is not then most flourishing, when its branches are 
lopped, and its trunk peeled, and its whole body cut down 
to one hard, unyielding mass ; but when one principle of 
life pervades it throughout ; when the trunk and the 
branches claim brotherhood and fellowship with the leaf 
that quivers, and the twig that bends to the breeze, and the 
bark that is delicate and easily wounded, and the root that 
lies lowly and unnoticed in the earth. And man is never 
so weak as when he seems to be strongest, standing alone 
in the confidence of an isolated and self-sufficing Intellect : 
he is never so strong as when he seems to be weakest, 
with every thought and resolve, and passion and affection, 
from the highest to the lowest, bound together in one by 
the common tie of a frail and feeble Humanity. He is 



228 LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS Lect. VIII. 

never so weak as when he casts off his burdens, and stands 
upright and unincumbered in the strength of his own will ; 
he is never so strong as when, bowed down in his feeble- 
ness, and tottering under the whole load that God has laid 
upon him, he comes humbly before the throne of grace, to 
cast his care upon the God who careth for him. 1 The life 
of man is one, and the system of Christian Faith is one ; 
each part supplying something that another lacks; each 
element making good some missing link in the evidence 
furnished by the rest. But we may avail ourselves of that 
which satisfies our own peculiar needs, only by accepting 
it as part and parcel of the one indivisible Whole. Thus 
only shall we grow in our Christian Life in just proportion 
of every part ; the intellect instructed, the will controlled, 
the affections purified, "till we all come, in the unity of the 
faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a per- 
fect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
Christ : that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to 
and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by 
the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie 
in wait to deceive ; but speaking the truth in love, may 
grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even 
Christ ; from whom the whole body, fitly joined together 
and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, accord- 
ing to the effectual working in the measure of every part, 
maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in 
love." 2 

1 1 St. Peter v. 7. 2 Ephesians iv. 13—16. 



NOTES. 



NOTES. 



LECTURE I. 



Note I., p. 22. 



See Galen, De Sectis, c. I. In this sense, the Dogmatists or Rationalists 
were distinguished from the Empirics. For the corresponding philosoph- 
ical sense of the term, see Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrh. Hyp. I. § 1—3. 



Note II., p. 23. 

"Dogmatism has its name from this, — that it professes to demonstrate, 
i. e. to establish dogmatically, as a causal nexus, the relation between 
things per se and phenomena; and maintains that things per se contain the 
ground of all that we observe in man and in the world of nature." — Poe- 
litz, Kant's Vorlesungen uber die Metaphysik, Einleitung, p. xxi. 



Note III., p. 23. 

Of the theological method of Wolf, the leader of philosophical dogma- 
tism in the eighteenth century, Mr. Rose observes : " He maintained that 
philosophy was indispensable to theology, and that, together with biblical 
proofs, a mathematical or strictly demonstrative dogmatical system, ac- 
cording to the principles of reason, was absolutely necessary. His own 
works carried this theory into practice, and after the first clamors against 
them had subsided, his opinions gained more attention, and it was not 
long before he had a school of vehement admirers who far outstripped 
him in the use of his own principles. We find some of them not content 
with applying demonstration to the truth of the system, but endeavoring 
to establish each separate dogma, the Trinity, the nature of the Redeemer, 
the Incarnation, the eternity of punishment, on philosophical, and, strange 
as it may appear, some of those truths on mathematical grounds." 1 

1 State of Protestantism, in Germany, p. 54. Second edition. 



232 NOTES. Lect. I. 

The language of Wolf himself may be quoted as expressing exactly the 
relation between Scripture and human reason mentioned in the text 
" Sacred Scripture serves as an aid to natural theology. For in the Scripture 
those things also are taught concerning God, which can be demonstrated 
from principles of reason; a thing which no one denies, who is versed in 
the reading of Scripture. It therefore furnishes natural theology with 
propositions, which ought to be demonstrated ; consequently the philoso- 
pher is bound, not to invent, but to demonstrate them." l 

The writings of Canz, a disciple of the Wolfian philosophy, are men- 
tioned by Mr. Rose and by Dr. Pusey {Historical Inquiry, p. 116), as ex- 
emplifying the manner in which this philosophy was applied to doctrinal 
theology. The following extracts from his attempted demonstration of 
the doctrine of the Trinity may be interesting to the reader,not only on account 
of the extreme rarity of the work from which they are taken, but also as 
furnishing a specimen of the dogmatic method, and showing the abuse to 
which it is liable in injudicious hands. 

" Since the character of every substance lies in some power of action, 
we must form our judgment of God from a power of action infinite and 
general. This power being infinite, embraces all perfections, and there- 
fore, does not lie in a bare faculty, which sometimes ceases from activity; 
for that would imply imperfection; nor in the power of doing this thing 
only, or only that, for that in like manner would betray limitations ; but 
in an ever-during act of working all things whatsoever in the most perfect 
and therefore the wisest manner. He is therefore a substance entirely 
singular. 

" Moreover, since God is pure actuality, working all in all, it follows that 
finite things, which may be and may not be, do not find the ground of 
their existence in themselves, but in Him who works all things, i. e. in 
God. There is therefore in God — and this we observe in the first place — 
an infinite Creative Power. 

" But since all created things relate to one another as means and ends, 
yet are themselves, in the ultimate scope, referred to the glory of God, it is 
plain that there is in God an infinite Faculty of Wisdom 

" Finally, inasmuch as there is infinite good in created things, and God, 
who works all, must be judged to have furnished forth all this good; it is 
not difficult to understand that there is in God an infinite Power of Love. 
For he loves, who increases, as far as possible, with various blessings, the 
happiness of others. 

********* 

" That which exists, is said to subsist, when it has reached its own full 
completion, and proceeds no farther. . . . 

1 Theologia Naturalis, Pars Prior, § 22. 



Lect. I. NOTES. 233 

" Whatever in this way, in its existence, proceeds no farther, is called 
by Metaphysicians v^ktt6.^vov, and if to this be added the gift of intelli- 
gence or reason, then there exists a Person {persona). 

" These things premised, let us see what there is in the nature of God 
thst justifies the designation of Three Persons. There is certainly in God 
a boundless power of action, and therefore evidence of His being a wholly 
singular Substance. We can also discover a triple activity, which com- 
pletes that power; a triple activity, which not only exists, as it presup- 
poses a power of action, but subsists also, as it is neither a part, nor an 
adjunct, nor an operation of an}^thing else. 

" And now there belongs to this triple unlimited activity, by which the 
Divine power is completed, a consciousness of itself, and a sense alike of 
the past and the future. It is therefore intelligent, and therefore a Person. 

" Since there are three activities of this kind in God, or in the Divine 
Nature, which is an unlimited power of action, it follows that there are in 
it Three Persons, which by a threefold unlimited operation complete and 
exercise that unlimited power. 

" Since in every created being, endowed with intelligence, the power of 
working, understanding, loving, cannot be completed except by one oper- 
ation, or by one activity; it follows, that in every finite being there can 
only be one person. 

" There is therefore a Trinity of Persons in God, which proceeds from his 
Infinite Nature as such: which was the thing proposed for demonstra- 
tion."! 

Note IV., p. 24. 

Kant defines Rationalism, as distinguished from Naturalism and Super- 
naturalism, in the following terms : " He who interprets natural religion 
as morally necessary, i. e. as Duty, may also be called (in matters of 
faith) Rationalist. When such an one denies the reality of all supernatural 
Divine revelation, he is called Naturalist ; if now he allows this, but main- 
tains that to know it and accept it as real is not a necessary requisite to 
Religion, he could be called a pure Rationalist ; but if he holds a faith in 
the same to be necessary to all Religion, he would have to be called, in 
matters of faith, a pure Super 'naturalist." 2 i n the text, the term is used in 

1 Philosophies, WolfiancB Consensus cum TJieologia, Francofurti et Lipsiae, 1737. 
This volume forms the third part of the Philosophies LeibnitiancB et Wolfiancz usus 
in Theologia, of which the first part was published in 1728, and the second in 
1732. The third part is extremely rare. The two former parts were reprinted in 
1749. 

2 Religion innerhdlb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft ( Werke, ed. Rosenkranz, x. 
p. 185) For different senses in which the term Rationalist has been used, see 

20* 



234 notes. Lect. I. 

a somewhat wider extent than that of the above definition. It is not nec- 
essary to limit the name of Rationalist to those who maintain that Revela- 
tion as a whole is unnecessary to religion; nor to those whose system is 
based solely on moral principles. There may be a partial as well as a 
total Rationalism: it is possible to acknowledge in general terms the 
authority of Scripture, and yet to exercise considerable license in rejecting 
particular portions as speculatively incomprehensible or morally unneces- 
sary. The term is sometimes specially applied to the Kantian school of 
theologians, of whom Paulus and Wegscheider are representatives. In 
this sense, Hegel declares his antagonism to the Rationalism of his day; i 
and Strauss, in his controversies with the naturalist critics of the Gospels, 
frequently speaks of their method as "Rationalism." In the sense in 
which the term is employed in the text, Hegel and Strauss are them- 
selves as thoroughly rationalists as their opponents. Even Schleiermacher, 
though a decided antagonist of the naturalist school, is himself a partial 
Rationalist of another kind; for with him the Christian Consciousness, i. e. 
the internal experience resulting to the individual from his connection 
with the Christian community, is made a test of religious truth almost as 
arbitrary as the Moral Reason of Kant. On the strength of this self- 
chosen criterion, Schleiermacher sets aside, among other doctrines, as un- 
essential to Christian belief, the supernatural conception of Jesus, the facts 
of his resurrection, ascension, and the prediction of his future judgment 
of the world; asserting that it is impossible to see how such facts can be 
connected with the redeeming power of Christ. 2 Indeed, in some of the 
details of his system, he falls into pure Rationalism ; as in his speculations 
on the existence of Angels, good and evil, on the Fall of Man, on eternal 
Punishment, on the two Natures of Christ, and on the equality of the Per- 
sons in the Holy Trinity. 

The so-called Spiritualism of the present day is again only Rationalism 
disguised; for feeling or intuition is but an arbitrary standard, resting 
solely on the personal consciousness, and moreover must be translated into 
distinct thought, before it can be available for the purposes of religious 
criticism. 

Note V., p. 24. 

Thus Wegscheider represents the claim of the Rationalists. "They 
claim for sound reason the power of deciding upon any religious doctrine 

Wegscheider, Instit. Theol. § 10; Rose, State of Protestantism in Germany, Introd. 
p. xvii. second edition ; Kahnis, Internal History of German Protestantism, p. 169, 
Meyer's translation. 

1 Geschichte der Pkilosophie ( Werke, XIII. p. 96). 

2 Christliche Glaube, § 97, 99. 



Lect. I. NOTES. 235 

whatsoever, derived from a supposed supernatural revelation, and of de- 
termining the argument for it to be made out, only according to the laws 
of thought and action implanted in reason." — Inst. Theol. § 10. See also 
Kohr, Brief e uber den Bationalismus, p. 31. 

Note VI., p. 27. 

" Wherefore if it is not fitting in God to do anything contrary to justice 
or good order, it does not pertain to His freedom or goodness or will to let 
the sinner go unpunished, who does not pay to God, that of which he has 
robbed Him." — Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, i. 12. " For the voluntary satis- 
faction of sin, and (or) the exaction of punishment from him who makes 
no satisfaction, hold in the same universe their own place and fair order. 
And if the Divine wisdom should not make application of these, where sin 
is striving to disturb right order, the orderly beauty of that very universe 
which God ought to control, would be violated and disfigured, and God 
would seem to be deficient in his own administration. These two (suppo- 
sitions) being as impossible as they are contrary to the fitness of things 
either satisfaction or punishment is the necessary consequence of sin.' 
Ibid. i. 15. "If therefore, as is evident, it is from men that the celestial 
state is to be made complete, — and this cannot be done unless the afore 
said satisfaction be made, which none can make but God, and none ought, 
but man, — then, as a necessary consequence, it must be made by God 
man." — Ibid. ii. 6. Compare Alex, ab AJes. Summa Theologioe, p. iii. Memb 
7, where the same argument is concisely stated. 

Note VII., p. 27 
Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, 1. ii. c. 16. 

Note Vin., p. 27. 
Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, 1. i. c. 5. 

Note IX., p. 27. 

"God is in such way merciful, that He is also at the same time just; 
mercy does not exclude, in Him, the eternal rule of justice, but there is in 
Him a perfect and admirable mingling of mercy and justice; therefore, 
without an equivalent price, sin could not, in the judgment of God, have 
been remitted to man, and the Divine justice have been unimpaired. 



286 notes. Lect. I. 

There remained, therefore, no other remedy, than for the Son of God him- 
self to assume human nature, and in it and through it to make satisfac- 
tion. God ought not, man could not." — J. Gerhard, Loci Theologici, De 
Persona et Officio Christi, c. 8. 

Note X., p. 27. 

" Because a mere creature could not have endured the immense weight 
of God's wrath, due to the sins of the whole world." — Chemnitz, De duabus 
Naturis in Christo, c. 11. 

Note XI., p. 27. 

Such is the demand of Anselm's interlocutor, which he himself under- 
takes to satisfy. " That I may understand on the ground of a reasonable 
necessity that all those things ought to be, which the Catholic faith teaches 
us to believe concerning Christ." — Cur Deus Homo, L. I. c. 25. To argu- 
ments founded on this principle the judicious remarks of Bishop Butler 
may be applied : " It may be needful to mention that several questions, 
which have been brought into the subject before us, and determined, are 
not in the least entered into here: questions which have been, I fear, 
rashly determined, and perhaps with equal rashness contrary ways. For 
instance, whether God could have saved the world by other means than the 
death of Christ, consistently with the general laws of his government." 1 

Note XII., p. 28. 

"In what did this satisfaction consist? Was it that God was angry, 
and needed to be propitiated like some heathen deity of old? Such a 
thought refutes itself by the very indignation which it calls up in the hu- 
man bosom." — Jowett, Epistles of St. Paul, vol. ii. p. 472. " Neither can there 
be any such thing as vicarious atonement or punishment, which, again, is 
a relic of heathen conceptions of an angered Deity, to be propitiated by 
offerings and sacrifices." — Greg, Creed of Christendom, p. 265. "The re- 
ligion of types and notions can travel only in a circle from whence there is 
no escape. It is but an elaborate process of self-confutation. After much 
verbiage it demolishes what it created, and having begun by assuming 
God to be angry, ends, not by admitting its own gross mistake, but by 
asserting Him to be changed and reconciled." — Mackay, Progress of the 
Intellect, vol. ii. p. 504. Compare Wcgscheider, Inst. Theol. § 141. 

1 Analogy, Fart II. Ch. 5. 



Lect. I. NOTES. 237 



Note XIII., p. 28. 

"For what is more unjust, than that an innocent one be punished in- 
stead of the guilty, especially when the guilty are themselves before the 
tribunal, and can themselves be punished ?"— F. Socinus, ^reelect. Theol, 
c. xviii. "That each should have his exact due is just — is the best for 
himself. That the consequence of his guilt should be transferred from 
him to one that is innocent (although that innocent one be himself willing 
to accept it), whatever else it be, is not justice" — Froude, Nemesis of Faith, 
p. 70. Compare Newman, Phases of Faith, p. 92; Greg, Creed of Christen- 
dom, p. 265. A similar objection is introduced, and apparently approved, 
by Mr. Maurice, Theological Essays, p. 139. 

Note XIV., p. 28. 

" There is no one who cannot, with the utmost justice, pardon and re- 
mit injuries done to himself, and debts contracted to himself, without 
having received any real satisfaction. Therefore, unless we mean to allow 
less to God than is allowed to men themselves, we must confess that God 
might justly have pardoned our sins without having received any real 
satisfaction for them." — F. Socinus, Pradect. Theol. c. xvi. 

" Now it is certainly required of us, that if our brother only repent, we 
should forgive him, even though he should repeat his offence seven times 
a day. On the same generous maxim, therefore, we cannot but conclude 
that the Divine being acts towards us." — Priestley, History of Corruptions, 
vol. i. p. 151. "Every good man has learnt to forgive, and when the of- 
fender is penitent, to forgive freely — without punishment or retribution : 
whence the conclusion is inevitable, that God also forgives, as soon as sin 
is repented of/ — Newman, The Soul, pp. 99, 100. " Was it that there was 
a debt due to Him, which must be paid ere its consequences could be done 
away ? But even ' a man's ' debt may be freely forgiven." — Jowett, Epistles 
of St. Paul, \o\.ii. p. 472. Compare also Maurice, Theol Essays, p. 138, 
and Garve, quoted by Rohr, Briefe uber den Baiionalismus, p. 442. 

Note XT., p. 27. 

" Pecuniary penalties, therefore, can be paid for another, because one 
person's money can be made another's; as when any one pays money, as 
a penalty, for some other person, then he for whom it is paid is tacitly, 
in reality, first presented with the money, and is considered to have paid 
it himself. But the death, or any bodily distress, of one person, cannot be 



238 NOTES. Lect. I. 

made another's." — F. Socinus, Prcelect. Theoh c. xviii. " Since money is, 
as the jurists say, something real, and so can be transferred from one to 
another. But punishments, and the deserts of men's sins from the law of 
God, are something personal, and moreover of such sort that they per- 
petually adhere to him who suffers them, and cannot be transferred to 
another." — F. Socinus, Christianas Religionis Institutio. {Opera, 1656. vol. 

i. p. 665.) "This original guilt cannot, so far as we see by the 

light of the law of Reason within us, be abolished by any one else, for it is 
no transmissible obligation, which, like a pecuniary debt (where it is indif- 
ferent to the creditor whether the debtor pay it himself or another pay it 
for him), can be transferred to another, but the most personal of all per- 
sonal ones, — the guilt of sin, which only the guilty can bear, not the 
innocent, be he ever so generous as to be willing to undertake it." — Kant, 
Religion innerlialb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, p. 84, ed. Rosenkranz. 
Compare Coleridge, Aids to Refection, p. 249, ed. 1839. His argument is 
chiefly an expansion of Kant's. 

Note XYL, p. 29. 

Wilberforce, Doctrine of the Incarnation, pp. 44, 45; 4th edition. The 
germ of this theory may perhaps be found in Damascenus, Be Fide Orthod. 
lib. hi. c. 6. See Dorner, Lehre von der person Christi, p. 115. It also par- 
tially appears, in a form more adapted to the realistic controversy, in 
Anselm, particularly in his treatise De Fide Trinitatis et de Incarnatione 
Verbi, written to refute the theological errors of the nominalist Roscelin. 
In modern times, a similar theory has found favor with those philosophers 
of the Hegelian school, who, in opposition to the development represented 
by Strauss, have undertaken the difficult task of reconciling the philosophy 
of their master with historical Christianity. In this point of view it has 
^een adopted by Schaller in his "Der historische Christus und die Philoso- 
phic," and by Goschel in his " Beitrage zur Speculativen Philosophic von 
Gott und dem Menschen und von dem Gottmenschen." For an account 
of these theories see Dorner, p, 462, 477. A similar view is maintained by 
Marheineke, Grundlehren der Christlichen Dogmatik, § 338, and by Dorner 
himself, Lehre von der Person Christi, p. 527, 

Note XVII., p. 30. 

" Item sequitur quod aliquid de essentia Christi erit miserum et damna- 
tum, quia ilia natura communis existens realiter in Christo et in damnato 
erit damnatum, quia in Juda." — Occam, Logica, P. i. c. 15. 



Lect. I. NOTES. 239 



Note XVIII., p. 32. 

"Religion is (subjectively considered) the acknowledgment of all our 
duties as divine commands." — Kant, Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der 
blossen Vernunft, p. 184. ed. Rosenkranz. In the same spirit, Fichte says, 
" Since all religion sets forth God only as a moral lawgiver, all that is not 
commanded by the moral law within us, is not His, and there is no means 
of pleasing Him, except by the observance of this same moral law." — 
Versuch einer Kritik oiler Offenbarung (WerJce, v. p. 127). This is exactly 
the theory of Religion which is refuted in anticipation by Bishop Butler 
(Analogy, P. n. ch. I.), as the opinion of those who hold that the "only 
design " of Revelation " must be to establish a belief of the moral system 
of nature, and to enforce the practice of natural piety and virtue." 

Note XIX., p. 32. 
Kant, Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, pp. 184, 186. 

Note XX., p. 32. 

" Prayer, as an inward formal worship of God, and on that account con- 
sidered as a means of grace, is a superstitious delusion." — Ibid., p. 235. 

Note XXI., p. 32. 

"A hearty wish to please God in all our conduct, — *. e. the disposition, 
accompanying all our actions, to do them as in the service of God, — is 
the spirit of prayer, which can and ought to be in us ' without ceasing/ 
But to clothe this wish in words and forms (be it only inwardly, even), 
can, at the utmost, only carry with it the value of a means for the re- 
peated quickening of that disposition in ourselves, but can have no imme- 
diate relation to the divine favor; also on that account cannot be a univer- 
sal duty, because a means can only be prescribed to him who needs it for 
certain ends." — Kant, Religion u. s. w. p. 235. — Cf. Fichte, Kritik aller 
Offenbarung, p. 127. For an account of a similar view advocated in Scot- 
land in the last century, by Dr. Leechman and others, see Combe's Consti- 
tution of Man, ch. ix. Subsequent writers have repeated the above theory 
in various forms, and in various spirits, but all urging the same objection, 
from the supposed unchangeable nature of God. See Schleiermacher, 
Christliche Glaube, § 147, and his sermon " Die Kraft des Gebetes," Predig- 
ten, I. p. 24; Strauss, Glaubenslehre, II. p. 387; Foxton, Popular Christi- 



240 NOTES. Lect. I. 

unity, p. 113; Parker, Theism, Atheism, and Popular Theology, p. 65; Emer- 
son, Essay on Self-Reliance ; and a remarkable passage from Greg's Creed 
of Christendom, quoted in Lecture VI. p. 147. Some valuable remarks on 
the other side will be found in two writers, usually opposed to each other, . 
but for once united in vindicating the religious instincts of mankind from 
the perversions of a false philosophy. See F. W. Newman, The Soul, p. 
118, and " Correspondence of R. E. H. Greyson, Esq," p. 218 (Am. Ed.). 
Kant's theory is ably criticized by Drobisch, Grundlehren der Religionsphi- 
losopie, p. 267. 

Note XXII., p. 32. 

Thus Fichte lays it down, as one of the tests of a true Revelation, that it 
must not countenance an objective Anthropomorphism of God. In illustra- 
tion of this canon, he says, " If we can really determine God by our 
feelings, can move him to sympathy, to compassion, to joy, then is He 
not the Unchangeable, the Only-sufficient, the Only-blessed, then is He 
determinable by something else than by the moral law; then can we hope 
to move Him, by moaning and contrition, to proceed otherwise with us, 
than the degree of our morality may have deserved. All these sensuous 
representations of divine attributes must not, therefore, be pronounced ob- 
jectively valid; it must not be left doubtful, whether such be essentially 
the nature of God (Gott an sich), or whether he is willing to allow us so to 
think of it, in behoof of our sensuous needs." * On this principle, he con- 
siders the notions of a Resurrection and a Day of Judgment as having a 
merely subjective validity. 2 In another passage, he speaks of the repre- 
sentation of God under conditions of time, as " a gross Anthropomorph- 
ism;" 3 apparently not seeing that the notion of unchangeableness is at 
least as much one of time, and therefore of Anthropomorphism, as that 
of compassion or joy. In a similar spirit, a later writer observes : " With 
the great importance so often attached to the personality of God, is quite 
too easily mingled the interest of Anthropopathism and Anthropomorph- 
ism." 4 In another passage, Fichte says : " He who says, Form for thyself 
no idea of God, says, in other words, Make for thyself no idol; and his 
command has for the mind the same significance as the ancient Mosaic 
commandment had for the senses : Thou shalt make to thyself no graven 
image." 5 These words may perhaps have suggested the cognate remarks 

1 Versuch einer Kritik alter Offenbarung ( Werke, V. p. 135). 

2 Versuch einer Kritik alter Offenbarung ( Werke, V. p. 136, 137). 

3 Ibid., p. 109. 

4 Baur, Christliche Gnosis, p. 705- 

5 Gericluliche Verantwortang ( Werke, V. p. 267). In like manner, Herder says, 



Lect. I. NOTES. 241 

of Professor Jowett: "It would be little better than idolatry to fill the 
mind with an idea of God which represented Him in fashion as a man. 
And in using a figure of speech, we are bound to explain to all who are 
capable of understanding, that we speak in a figure only, and to remind 
them that logical categories may give as false and imperfect a conception 
of the Divine nature in our own age, as graven images in the days of the 
patriarchs." 1 If by logical categories are meant analogical representations 
formed from the facts of human consciousness, this passage may be so 
interpreted as to imply either an important truth, or a dangerous error. 
If interpreted to mean that such representations of God cannot be 
regarded as adequate expressions of His absolute and infinite nature, it 
states a truth, the importance of which can hardly be over-estimated; 
but if it be meant, as Fichte undoubtedly meant, to signify that mental no 
less than bodily images, are, regarded from a human point of view, false 
and idolatrous, the author would do well to tell us what we can substitute 
in their place. "We may confidently challenge all natural Theology," 
says Kant, " to name a single distinctive attribute of the Deity, whether 
denoting intelligence or will, which, apart from Anthropomorphism, is 
anything more than a mere word, to which not the slightest notion can be 
attached, which can serve to extend our theoretical knowledge." 2 Kant, 
however, attempts to avoid the conclusion to which this admission neces- 
sarily leads ; — namely, that Anthropomorphism, in this sense of the term, 
is the indispensable condition of all human theology. As regards the 
charge of idolatry, it is best answered in the words of Storr : " The image 
of God we have not made for ourselves, but God has placed it before 
us." 3 The very commandment which forbids the representation of God 
by a bodily likeness, does so by means of two other human representa- 
tions, that of a mental state, and that of a consequent course of action. 
"Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image; for I the Lord thy 
God am a jealous God, and visit the sins of the fathers upon the children." 
The Satire of Xenophanes has been repeated by modern critics in a man- 
ner which deprives it entirely of its original point. Thus Mr. Theodore 

" Therefore when we speak of God, better (have) no images ! In philosophy, as 
in the law of Mcses, this is our first commandment" — Gott. Einige Gesprdche 
uber Spinoza's System. ( Werke, VIII. p. 228.) 

1 Epistles of St. Paul, Vol. ii. p. 404. 

2 Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, p. 282, ed. Rosenkranz. Compare the remark- 
able words of Jacobi ( Von den gottlichen Dingen. Werke, III. p. 418, 422). " We 
confess, accordingly, to an Anthropomorphism inseparable from the conviction 
that man bears in him the image of God; and maintain that besides this An- 
thropomorphism, which has always been called Theism, is nothing but Atheism 
or Fetichism." 

3 Annotationes qucedam Thtologicce , p. 10. 

21 



242 NOTES. Lect. I. 

Parker says, " A Beaver or a Reindeer, if possessed of religious faculties, 
would also conceive of the Deity with the limitations of its own personal- 
ity, as a Beaver or a Reindeer." l The satire loses its entire force, when 
transferred from bodily forms to mental attributes. In imagining a 
Beaver or a Reindeer with a personal consciousness, we so far imagine 
him as resembling man, notwithstanding the difference of bodily form. 
The sarcasm, therefore, amounts to no more than this : that human con- 
sciousness in another body would be subject to the same limits of religious 
thought as in its present one. The latest specimen of this kind of would- 
be philosophy is furnished by Professor Baden Powell, in his " Christianity 
without Judaism," p. 108. " It is not one of the least remarkable of these 
Anthropomorphisms," he says, " that (as in former instances) the disclos- 
ure of the Divine purposes is made under the figure of Jehovah entering 
into a covenant with his people, — an idea specially adapted to a nation of 
the lowest moral capacity." One would have thought that the fact that 
this image was selected by God Himself, as the symbol of His relation to 
His chosen people (to say nothing of its repetition in the New Testament), 
might have insured its more respectful treatment at the hands of a Clergy- 
man. But Mr. Powell, in his zeal for "Christianity without Judaism," 
seems to forget that Judaism, as well as Christianity, was a Revelation 
from God. 

Note XXIII., p. 34. 

This remark may seem at first sight not so appropriate in relation to 
Kant as to some other advocates of a similar theory, such, for instance, as 
Mr. Greg, whose remarks on prayer are quoted in Lecture VI. p. 147. For 
Kant, in language at least, expressly denies that any temporal consecution 
can be included in the conception of God. 2 But, in truth, this denial is 
and must be merely verbal. For the moral law, in Kant's own theory, is 
regarded as a divine command because it is conceived as a perpetual obli- 
gation, binding upon all human acts; and the perpetuity of the obligation, 
in relation to successive acts, necessarily implies the idea of Time. Thus 
God in relation to man, as a moral Governor, is necessarily manifested 
under the condition of time; and this manifestation is the only philosoph- 
ical representation of God which the Kantian philosophy recognizes as 
valid. Indeed, if Time be, as Kant maintains, a necessary form of human 
consciousness, the language which speaks of a Being existing out of time 
can have no significance to any human thinker. 

1 Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion, p. 100. 

2 Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunfl, p. 57, ed. Rosenkranz 



Lect. I. NOTES. 243 



Note XXIV., p. 34. 

Xenophanes, apud Clem. Alex. Stromata, V. p. 601 : 

" But if oxen and lions had hands like ours, and fingers, 
Then would horses like unto horses, and oxen to oxen, 
Paint and fashion their god-forms, and give to them bodies 
Of like shape to their own, as they themselves too are fashioned." 
[As translated in Morrison's Bitter's Hist. Arte. Phil., vol. I., p. 431. j 

Note XXY., p. 38. 
Plato, Republic, IV. p. 433. 

Note XXVI. p. 38. 
Advancement of Learning. ( Works, ed. Montagu, vol. ii. p. 303.) 

Note XXVIL, p. 39. 

Versuch einer Kritih aller Offenbarung, Konigsberg, 1792, 2d Ed. 1793. 
(Fichte's Werke, V. p. 9.) A few specimens of the criticisms hazarded in 
this work will be sufficient to show the arbitrary character of the method 
on which it proceeds. The author assumes that God is determined entirely 
and solely by the moral law as conceived by man; and that Religion, 
therefore, must consist solely in moral duties, 1 Hence he lays down, 
among others, the following criteria, without satisfying which, no revela- 
tion can be accepted as of divine origin. 

There must have been a moral necessity for it at the time of its publica- 
tion (p. 113). 

It must not draw men to obedience by any other motive than reverence 
for God's holiness. Hence it must not contain any prospect of future 
reward or punishment (p. 115). 

It must not communicate any knowledge attainable by the natural 
reason (p. 122). 

It must contain only such moral rules as may be deduced from the prin- 
ciple of the practical reason (p. 124). 

It must not promise any supernatural aids to men in the performance of 
their duty (p. 129). 

Kant's own work, Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, 

1 Werke, V. pp. 42, 55. 



244 NOTES. Lect. l 

Konigsberg, 1793, is based on a similar principle ; and many of his conclu- 
sions are identical with those of Fichte. He agrees with his disciple in 
maintaining that no doctrine can be received on the authority of Revela- 
tion, without the concurrent testimony of Reason ; l and that a moral life is 
the only duty which God can require of a man. 2 Hence he defines Re- 
ligion as "the acknowledgment of all our duties as divine commands;" 
and asserts that there can be no special duties towards God distinct from 
our moral obligations to our fellow-men. 3 In accordance with these prin- 
ciples, he advocates, and in some instances applies, a method of Scripture 
interpretation, which consists in forcing every available doctrine and pre- 
cept into a so-called moral significance, and rejecting as unessential what- 
ever will not bear this treatment. 4 Thus, in the fifty-ninth Psalm, the 
enemies of David are interpreted to mean the evil passions which he 
wished to overcome. 

The narrowness of Kant's fundamental assumption, even as regards the 
human side of religion only, is pointed out by Willm, Histoire de la Philos- 
ophic Allemande, vol. ii. p. 47: "By regarding religion as chiefly a means 
of promoting morality, Kant has too much limited its divine mission; he 
has forgotten that religion must besides be a source of consolation and 
of hope, in the midst of the ills of the present life ; and that by powerful 
motives and lofty meditations it must come to the succor of frail human- 
ity, that it must serve as a support in the double struggle that we have to 
sustain against temptation to evil and against suffering." See also Dro- 
bisch, Grundleliren der Beligionsjphilosophie, p. 264, who adopts a similar 
ground of criticism. 

Note XXVIIL, p. 41. 

" In the exposition of the pure conception it has yet further been de- 
clared, that it is the absolute divine conception itself; so that in truth there 
would not be the relation of an application, but the logical process is the 
immediate exhibition of God's self-determination to Being." — Hegel, Logik. 
( Werke, V. p. 170.) In like manner his disciple Marheineke says, " Only 
as subsumed into this Idea, and sublated$ in it, is the human spirit capable 
of knowing God. His true self-exalting to God by thinking, is however, 

1 Werke, X. p. 228. 

2 Ibid. p. 122. 

3 Ibid. p. 184. 

4 Ibid. pp. 98, 130. 

5 [ u This sublating has the double meaning of tollerc and of conservare, and in- 
dicates the taking up and the retaining under a higher point of view, etc."— 
Chalybaeus''s Hist, of Speculative Philosophy, transl. by Edersheim, p 351: Edinburgh^ 
1854.] — Trans. 



Lect. I. NOTES. 245 

ever at the same time, a being-exalted, the insertion of the human thinking 
of God into the divine thinking of God." 1 Such passages are instructive 
as showing the only conditions under which, according to the admission 
of its ablest advocates, a Philosophy of the Absolute is attainable by hu- 
man thought. In reference to these lofty pretensions, Sir William Hamil- 
ton justly speaks of " the scheme of pantheistic omniscience, so prevalent 
among the sequacious thinkers of the day." 2 

Note XXIX., p. 41. 

" Besides God there exists, truly and in the proper sense of the word, 
nothing at all but knowledge ; and this knowledge is the divine Existence 
itself, absolutely and immediately, and in so far as we are knowledge, are 
we, in the deepest root of our being, the divine Existence." — Fichte, 
Anweisungen zum seligen Leben (Werlce, V. p. 448). " Man, rational being 
in general, is ordained to be a complement of the phenomenal world ; out 
of him, out of his activity, is to develop itself all that is wanting to the 
totality of the revelation of God, since nature receives, indeed, the whole 
divine substance, but only in the Real : rational being is to express the 
image of the same divine Nature, as it is in itself, accordingly, in the 
Ideal." — Schelling, Vorlesungen iiber die Methode des Academischen Studium, 
p. 18. " God is infinite, I finite — these are false expressions, forms not 

fitted to the idea, to the nature of the case God is the movement 

to the finite, and thereby as sublation of the same to himself; in the / as 
the self-subiating as finite, God regresses to himself, and is only God as 
this regress." — Hegel, Vorlesungen, uber die Philosophie der Religion ( Werlce, 
XI. p. 194). "Man's knowledge of God is, according to the essential 
communion, a common knowledge; i. e., man has knowledge of God, 
only in so far as God has knowledge of Himself; this knowledge is God's 
self-consciousness; but just so is it, too, His knowledge of man; and God's 
knowledge of man is man's knowledge of God." — Ibid. XII. p. 496. " Ra- 
tional knowledge of truth is, first of all, as a knowledge of God, knowledge 
through God, knowledge in his Spirit and through it. By finite, rela- 
tive thinking, God, who is nothing finite and relative, cannot be thought 
and known. On the contrary, in the knowledge, the I is out beyond 



1 Grundlehren der Cliristlichen Dogmatik, $ 21. In another passage of the same 
work (§ 84) he says, "As God in the knowledge of Himself does not have Him- 
self extra se, and as the self-knowing is no other than the known, but rather the 
Spirit, unity and essence of both, so is the idea of the Absolute the absolute idea, 
and as such the stand-point of all knowledge and all science." 

2 Discussions, p. 787. 

21* 



246 NOTES. Lect. I. 

itself, and the subjectivity of the isolated consciousness of itself, — it is in 
God, and God in it." Marheineke, Grundlehren der ChristUchen Dogmatik, 
§115. 

Rationalism here takes up a common ground with Mysticism, and the 
logical process of the Hegelians becomes identical with the ecstatic intui- 
tion of the Neo-Platonists. Compare the language of Plotinus, Enn. VI. 

L. ix. c. 9. " It (the soul) may then see itself becoming God, 

or rather being God." In the same strain sings the "Cherubic Wan- 
derer," Angelus Silesius : 

" In God is nothing known: He is the only One: 
What we in Him do know, that we ourselves must be." l 

For an exactly similar doctrine, asserted in the Hindu Vedas, see Dr. 
Mill's Observations on the application of pantheistic principles to the criticism 
of the Gospel, p. 159. 

Note XXX., p. 41. 

Hegel, in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, thus interprets the 

history of Christ. " The truth which men have reached in this 

entire history is this : that the idea of God has for them a certainty; that 
the Human is immediate, present God; and indeed, in such wise, that in 
this history, as the spirit apprehends it, the exhibition of the process per- 
tains to that, which constitutes man, the spirit." 2 The view here obscurely 
intimated is more explicitly stated by his disciple, Strauss, whose theory 
is little more than the legitimate development of his master's. In his 
Christliche Glaubenslehre, § 33, he sums up the result of the speculations of 
modern philosophy concerning the Personality of God, in the following 
words : " God being in himself the eternal Personality itself, has been 
forever bringing forth out from Himself his Other (or alterum) Nature, 
in order forever to return to Himself as self-conscious Spirit. Or, the Per- 
sonality of God must not be thought of as single-personality, but as all- 
personality; instead of on our side personifying the absolute, we must 
learn to apprehend it as the endlessly Self-personifying." This view is 
still more plainly stated in a fearful passage of his Leben Jesu, § 151, which 
the reader will find quoted at length in Lecture V. p. 130. The critic 
of Strauss, Bruno Bauer, in his Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte der Sy- 
noptiker, § 91, adopts the same view, observing, "In general the religious 

1 Cherubinischer Wander smann, I. 285. Quoted by Strauss, Christliche Glaubens- 
lehre, I. p. 531. 

2 Werke, XII. p. 307. 



Lect. l notes. 247 

consciousness is the Spirit estranged from itself ;" and to this origin he 
ascribes the doctrine of Christ's Divinity : " The historical Christ is man, 
raised to heaven by the religious consciousness." Feuerbach, in his 
Wesen des Chvistenthums, 1 from a different point of view, arrives at a 
similar conclusion, maintaining that God is but the personification of the 
general notion of humanity. Emerson gives us occasional glimpses 
of the same philosophy. Thus in his "Christian Teacher" he explains 
the Divinity of Christ: " He saw that God incarnates himself in man, and 
evermore goes forth anew to take possession of his world. He said in 
this jubilee of sublime emotion: 'I am divine. Through me God acts; 
through me, speaks. Would you see God, see me; or see thee, when thou 
also thinkest as I now think/" 2 And, in the "Over-Soul." in still more 
daring language, he says : " In all conversation between two persons, tacit 
reference is made as to a third party, to a common nature. That third 
party or common nature is not social; it is impersonal, is God." 3 

Another form of this deification of humanity is that of M. Comte, who 
agrees with Strauss and Feuerbach, in finding God only in the human 
race. This discovery is announced as the grand consummation of Posi- 
tive Philosophy. "This final estimation condenses V ensemble of positive 
conceptions in the single notion of one Being immense and eternal, Hu- 
manity, whose sociological destinies develop themselves always under the 
necessary preponderance of biological and cosmological fatalities. Around 
this veritable Great-Being, the immediate mover of every existence, indi- 
vidual or collective, our affections centre as spontaneously as our thoughts 
and our actions." 4 From this grand ideal of humanity, unworthy individ- 
uals of the race are excluded; but* "si ces producteurs de fumier ne font 
vraiment point partie de l'Humanite, une juste compensation vous pre- 
sent de joindre au nouvel Etre-Supreme tous ses dignes auxiliaires ani- 
maux." 5 Such is the brilliant discovery which entitles its author, in his 
own modest estimate, to be considered as uniting in his own person the 
characters of St. Paul and Aristotle, as the founder at once of true religion 
and sound philosophy. 6 

1 See Ewerbeck, QiCest ce gue la Religion cVapres la nouvelle Philosophie Allemawlr, 
pp 271, 390, 413. 

2 Essays (Orr's Edition, 1851), p. 511. 

3 Ibid., p. 125. 

4 Catechisme Positiviste, p. 19. 

5 Catechisme Positiviste, p. 31. Thus, under the auspices of the positive philoso- 
phy, we return once more to the worship of the ibis, the ichneumon, and the cat. 
The Egyptians had the same reverence for their ; ' dignes auxiliares animaux." 
"They deified no beast, but for some utility which they might get from it." — 
(Cicero, De Natura Deorum, I. 36.) 

v This exquisite passage must be quoted in the original to be properly appre- 



^ 



248 NOTES. Lect. I. 

" Oh, worthy thou of Egypt's wise abodes,— 
A decent priest, where monkeys were the gods ! " 



Note XXXI., p. 42. 

"The object of religion as of philosophy, is eternal truth in its very 
objectivity, God, and nothing but God, and the unfolding of God." — 
Hegel, Philosophie der Religion {Werke, XL p. 21). 



Note XXXII., p. 42. 

" Thus is religion the divine Spirit's knowledge of Himself through the 
mediation of the finite Spirit."— Hegel, Werke, XL p. 200. " Religion 
we have defined as the self-consciousness of God." — Ibid. XII. p. 191. 
Compare Marheineke, Grundlehren der Christlichen Dogmatik, § 420. " Re- 
ligion is, accordingly, nothing at all but the existence of the divine Spirit 
in the human; but an existence, which is life, a life which is conscious- 
ness, a consciousness which, in its truth, is knowledge. This human 
knowledge is essentially divine; for it is, first of all, the divine Spirit's 
knowledge, and religion in its absoluteness." 

Note XXXIIL, p. 42. 

" Logic is consequently to be conceived as the system of the pure reason, 
as the realm of pure thought. This realm is truth unveiled and absolute. 
We may therefore say, that it contains in itself the exhibition of God, 
as He is in His eternal essence before the creation of nature and a finite 
spirit."— Hegel, Logik (Werke, III. p. 33). 

Note XXXIV., p. 42. 

Clemens Alex. Stromata, i. 2. Upcoroy fiev, cl Ka\ ^XP 7 ?* 71 " * e ^V <piho<ro- 
<pia, €i svxpwros t\ ttjs axpwria.s fiefiaiaxrts, etixpWTOs. 

ciated. " En appliquant aussitot ce principe evident, je devais spontanement 
choisir l'angelique interlocutrice, qui, apres une seule annee d'influence objective 
se trouve, depuis plus de six ans, subjectivement associee k toutes mes pensees 
comme k tous mes sentiments. C'est par elle qui je suis enfin devenu, pour 
l'Humanite, un organe vraiment double, comme quiconque a dignement subi 
Tascendant feminin. Sans elleje n'aurais jamais pu faire activement succeder le 
carriere de St. Paul k celle d'Aristote, en fondant la religion universelle sur la 
6aine philosophie, apres avoir tire celle-ci de la science reelle."— Preface, p. xxii. 



Lect. II. NOTES. 249 



LECTURE II. 

Note I., p. 45. 

" Unless we have independent means of knowing that God knows the 
truth, and is disposed to tell it to us, his word (if we be ever so certain that it 
is really his word) might as well not have been spoken. But if we know, 
independently of the Bible, that God knows the truth, and is disposed to 
tell it to us, obviously we know a great deal more also. We know not 
only the existence of God, but much concerning his character. For, only 
by discerning that he has Virtues similar in kind to human Virtues, do 
we know of his truthfulness and his goodness. Without this a priori 
belief, a book-revelation is a useless impertinence. "— F. W. Newman, The 
Soul, p. 58. With this a priori belief, it is obvious that a book-revelation 
is, as far as our independent knowledge extends, still more impertinent; 
for it merely tells us what we knew before. See an able criticism of this 
theory in the Eclipse of Faith, p. 73 sqq. 



Note II., p. 47. 

" Furthermore, since, for us, that falls under the sphere of the under- 
standing, which a great many philosophers before us have declared to be 
within the province of the reason, we shall have for the highest kind of 
intelligence a position unattained by them; and we shall define it as that 
by which finite and infinite are seen in the eternal, but not the eternal 
in the finite or in the infinite." — Schelling, Bruno, p. 163. (Compare p. 
69.) " But there are still other spheres, which can be observed, — not 
merely those which are confined to a relativity of finite to finite, but 
those, too, wherein the divine in its absoluteness is in the conscious- 
ness." — Hegel, Philosophie der Religion (Werlce, XI. p. 196). In like 
manner, Mr. Newman speaks of the Soul as " the organ of specific infor- 
mation to us," respecting things spiritual; 1 and Mr. Parker says, "that 
there is a connection between God and the soul, as between light and the 
eye, sound and the ear, food and the palate, etc." 2 



Note III., p. 47. 

"This substance, simple, primitive, must comprise the perfections in 
eminent degree, contained in the derivative substances, which are its 

1 The Soul, p. 3. 2 Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion, p. 130. 



250 NOTES. Lect. II. 

effects; thus it will have power, knowledge, good-will in perfection; that is, 
omnipotence, omniscience, supreme goodness. And as justice, taken gen- 
erally, is nothing but goodness conformed to wisdom, there must also he 
in God a supreme justice." — Leibnitz, Principes de la Nature ei de la Grace, 
\ 9. " Being conscious that I have, personally, a little Love, and a little 
Goodness, I ask concerning it, as concerning Intelligence, — where did I 
pick it up ? and I feel an invincible persuasion, that if I have some moral 
goodness, the great Author of my being has infinitely more. He did not 
merely make rocks, and seas, and stars, and brutes, but the human Soul 
also ; and, therefore, I am assured he possesses all the powers and excel- 
lencies of that soul in an infinitely higher degree." — F. W. Newman, 
Reply to the Eclipse of Faith, p. 26. This argument, however true in its 
general principle, is liable to considerable error in its special applications. 
The remarks of Bishop Browne are worth consideration, as furnishing 
a caution on the other side. " To say that God is infinite in perfection, 
means nothing real and positive in him, unless we say, in a hind of per- 
fection altogether inconceivable to us as it is in itself. For the multiply- 
ing or magnifying the greatest perfections whereof we have any direct 
conception or idea, and then adding our gross notion only of indefinite to 
them, is no other than heaping up together a number of imperfections to 
form a chimera of our imagination." — Divine Analogy, p. 171. 



Note IV., p. 48. 

Compare Wegscheider's definition of Mysticism, Instit. Theol. § 5. — " A 
near approach to superstition, or rather a species of it, is mysticism ; or a 

belief in a particular faculty of the soul, by which it may reach 

even in this world an immediate intercourse with the Deity or with celestial 
natures, and enjoy immediately a knowledge of divine things." 

Note V., p. 49. 

Fichte, Versuch einer Kritik aller Offeribarung. ( Werke, V. pp. 40, 115.) 
— The following remarks of Mr. Parker are another application of the 
same principle, substituting, however, as if on purpose to show the con- 
tradictory conclusions to which such a method of reasoning may lead, 
the conception of perfect love and future compensation, for that of a 
moral nature with no affections and no future promises. "This we know, 
that the Infinite God must be a perfect Creator, the sole and undisturbed 

author of all that is in Nature Now, a perfect Motive for creation, — 

what will that be? It must be absolute Love, producing a desire to bless 



Lect. II. NOTES. 251 

everything which He creates If God be infinite, then He must make 

and administer the world from perfect motives, for a perfect purpose, and 
as a perfect means, — all tending to the ultimate and absolute blessed- 
ness of each thing He directly or mediately creates ; the world must be 
administered so as to achieve that purpose for each thing. Else God has 
made some things from a motive and for a purpose not benevolent, or as 
a means not adequate to the benevolent purpose. These suppositions are 
at variance with the nature of the Infinite God. I do not see how this 
benevolent purpose can be accomplished unless all animals are immortal, 
and find retribution in another life." — Theism, Atheism and the Popular 
Theology, pp. 108, 109, 198. 

Note VI., p. 49. 

The nature of the case implies that the human mind is competent to 
sit in moral and spiritual judgment on a professed revelation, and to decide 
(if the case seem to require it) in the following tone. 'This doctrine 
attributes to God that which we should all call harsh, cruel, or unjust, 
in man: it is, therefore, intrinsically inadmissible/ n — Newman, The 
Soul, p. 58. For an able refutation of this reasoning, see the Defence of 
the Eclipse of Faith, p. 38. 

Note VII., p. 49. 

" To suppose the future volitions of moral agents not to be necessary 
events ; or, which is the same thing, events which it is not impossible but 
that they may not come to pass ; and yet to suppose that God certainly 
foreknows them, and knows all things ; is to suppose God's Knowledge to 
be inconsistent with itself." — Edwards, On the Freedom of the Will, part 
2 sect. 12. 

Note VIII., p. 49. 

" Let us suppose a great prince governing a wicked and rebellious peo- 
ple. He has it in his power to punish : he thinks fit to pardon them. But 
he orders his only and well-beloved son to be put to death, to expiate 
their sins, and to satisfy his royal vengeance. Would this proceeding 
appear to the eye of reason, and in the unprejudiced light of nature, wise, 
or just, or good ?" — Bolingbroke, Fragments or Minutes of Essays ( Works, 
vol. v. p. 289, ed. 1754). Compare Newman, Phases of Faith, p. 92. See 
also above Lecture I., note 13. 



252 NOTES. Lect. II. 



Note IX., p. 49. 

"Intellectually, we of necessity hold that the highest human perfection 

is the best type of the Divine Every good man has learnt to forgive, 

and when the offender is penitent, to forgive freely, — without punish- 
ment or retribution: whence the conclusion is inevitable, that God also 
forgives, as soon as sin is repented of." — Newman, The Suul, p. 99. "It 
may be collected from the principles of Natural Religion, that God, on the 
sincere repentance of offenders, will receive them again into favour, and 
render them capable of those rewards naturally attendant on right be- 
haviour." — Warburton, Divine Legation, b. ix., ch. 2. Compare, on the 
other side, Magee on the Atonement, notes iv. and xxiv. See also above, 
Lecture I., note 14. 

Note X., p. 49. 

" A divine command is pleaded in vain, except it can be shown that the 
thing supposed to be commanded is not inconsistent with the law of 
nature; which, if God can dispense with in any one case, he may in all." 
— Tindal, Christianity as old as the Creation, p. 272, quoted and answered by 
"Waterland, Scripture Vindicated, on Numbers xxi. 2, 3. 

Note XI., p. 50. 

Kant, Streit der Facultdten, p. 321, ed. Rosenkranz. Newman, Phases of 
Faith, p. 150. Parker, Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion, p. 84. 

Note XII., p. 50. 
Tindal, apud Waterland 1. c. Newman, Phases of Faith, p. 151. 

Note XIII., p. 50. 
Newman, The Soul, p. 60. Greg, Creed of Christendom, p. 8. 

Note XIV., p. 51. 

" The Absolute is that which is free from all necessary relation, that 
is, which is free from every relation as a condition of existence; but it may 
exist in relation, provided that relation be not a necessary condition of its 



LECT. II. NOTES. 253 

existence; that is, provided that relation maybe removed without affect- 
ing its existence." . . . "The Infinite expresses the entire absence of all 
limitation, and is applicable to the one Infinite Being in all his attri- 
butes. " — Calderwood, Philosophy of the Infinite, pp. 30, 37. The defini- 
tions may be accepted, though they lead to conclusions the very opposite 
of those which the ingenious author has attempted to establish. The 
Absolute, as above defined, is taken in the first of the two senses dis- 
tinguished by Sir W. Hamilton, Discussions, p. 14; and in this sense it is 
the necessary complement of the idea of the Infinite. The other sense, in 
which the Absolute is contradictory of the Infinite, is irrelevant to the 
present argument. 

Note XV., p. 52. 

" The absolutely infinite is what contains everything, or every perfection, 
which can exist or be conceived; that you are wont to call infinite in per- 
fection. Infinite, e. g. predicated of extension, means what embraces all 
existing or conceivable extension." — Werenfels, DeFinibus Mundi Dia- 
logic (Dissertationes, 1716, vol. ii., p. 192). In the latter sense, Clarke 
speaks of the error of " imagining all Infinites to be equal, when in things 
disparate they manifestly are not so; an infinite Line being not only not 
equal to, but infinitely less than an infinite Surface, and an infinite Surface 
than Space infinite in all Dimensions." 1 This remark assumes that an 
infinite extension is a possible object of conception at all; whereas, in 
fact, the attempt to conceive it involves the same fundamental contradic- 
tions which accompany the notion of the Infinite in every other aspect. 
This is ingeniously shown by Werenfels, in the above Dialogue, p. 218. 
" D. But do you then think, that an infinite line cannot be conceived at 
all without contradiction? Ph. I do, indeed; and I cannot be drawn from 
this opinion, unless some one of you have a conclusive answer to this 
demonstration; but this, unless you lack the patience to listen, I will 
briefly propose anew. You see this line b a c. Let us suppose 

it to be infinite, and to be extended ad infinitum beyond the termini b and c. 
Let this line be divided at the point a. It is manifest that these parts are 
equal to one another, because each begins at the point a and is extended 
ad infinitum. Now, I ask you, Daedalus, are these two parts finite, or 
infinite? D. Finite. Ph. So an infinite would be composed of two 
finites; which is a contradiction. D. I confess my mistake. They are 
infinite. Ph. Now you fall into Scylla Thus parts would be equal to 

1 Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, Prop. I. 

22 



254 NOTES. Lect. II. 

a whole; for infinite is equal to infinite. Besides, you see, that each part 
is terminated at the point a ; it is, therefore, not without ends and bounds. 
What say you to this, Polymathes? Po. I have an answer. Each of 
these parts is on the one side finite, — namely, at the point a, — on the 
other, infinite, because it is extended beyond b and c ad infinitum. Ph. 
Ingeniously, acutely, nothing more so. But I ask you, whether there is 
on either- section of the infinite line an infinite number of such parts as 
the line ab and the line ac ? Po. Yes. Ph. But is that number infinite, to 
which an equal can be added, and the double of which is not only con- 
ceivable, but really existent? If you answer yes, then an infinite number 
does not contain all units, but there can besides be conceived and added 
to it, as many units as it may not have. But if this be not a contradiction, 
then what is there, that is a contradiction? Po. But, what if either sec- 
tion of the given line consist of a finite number of parts of such mag- 
nitude as the line ab ? Ph. Then the given line is finite; because two finite 
numbers added together, make a finite number; which was the thing to 
be proved." The contradictions thus involved in the notion of infinite 
magnitudes in space, are not solved by maintaining, with Spinoza and 
Clarke, that infinite quantity is not composed of parts; 1 for space with no 
parts is as inconceivable as space composed of an infinite number of parts. 
These contradictions sufficiently show that relative infinity, no less than 
absolute, is not a positive object of thought at all; the so-called infinites 
and infinitesimals of the mathematicians being in fact only negative ex- 
pressions, denoting magnitudes which bear no relation to any assignable 
quantity, however great or small. They are thus apprehended only by 
reference to their inconceivability; being merely the expression of our 
inability to represent in thought a first or last unit of space or time. — See 
Leibnitz, Theodicee Discours, §70. " We are embarrassed in the series of 
numbers, progressing ad infinitum. We conceive of a last term, of an 
infinite or an infinitesimal; but these are only fictions. Every number 
is finite and assignable, and the infinites and the infinitesimals signify 
nothing but magnitudes, which we may take as large or as small as we 
please, etc." — Compare Pascal, Pensees, Partie I. Art. II. "In short, 

1 See Spinoza, Epist. XXIX, Ethica, P. I. Prop, xv.; and Clarke, Demonstration, 
Prop. 1. A curious psychological discrepancy may be observed in relation to 
this controversy. Spinoza maintains that quantity as represented in the imagi- 
nation is finite, but that as conceived by the intellect it is infinite. Werenfels, on 
the contrary, asserts that the imagined quantity is infinite, the conceived finite. 
The truth is, that in relation to Space, which is not a general notion containing 
individuals under it, conception and imagination are identical; aud the notions 
of an ultimate limit of extension and of an unlimited extension, are both equally 
self-contradictory from every point of view. 



Lect. II. NOTES. 255 

whatever be the motion, number, space, time, there is always a greater 
and a less; so that they all stand between nothing and infinity, being 
always infinitely removed from these extremes. " Some ingenious rea- 
soning on this question will be found in a note by Mosheim on Cud- 
worth's Intellectual System, b. I. ch. V., translated in Harrison's edition of 
Cudworth, vol. II. p. 541 ; though the entire discussion is by no means 
satisfactory. 



Note XVI., p. 52. 

" By the Deity I understand a Being absolutely infinite, i. e., a substance 
consisting of infinite attributes, each one of which expresses an eternal 
and infinite essence. I say infinite absolutely, but not in its kind, for whatever 
is infinite in its hind only, of that we cannot affirm infinite attributes ; but to the 
essence of that which is absolutely infinite, there pertains whatever expresses 
essence and involves no negation. 3 ' — Spinoza, Ethica, P. I. Def. VI. 



Note XVII., p. 52. 

See Spinoza 1. c; Wolf, Theologia Naturalis, P. II. § 15; Kant, Kritihder 
reinen Vernunft, p. 450. ed. Rosenkranz; Vorlesungen uber die Metaphysih, 
ed. Poelitz, p. 276; Schelling, Vom Ich, § 10. The assumption ultimately 
annihilates itself; for if any object of conception exhausts the universe of 
reality, it follows that the mind which conceives it has no existence. The 
older form of this representation is criticized by Hegel, Encyclopddie, § 36. 
His own conception of God, however, virtually amounts to the same 
thing. A similar view is implied in his criticism of Aristotle, whom he 
censures for regarding God as one object out of many. See Geschichte der 
Philosophic, WerJce, XIV. p. 283. 



Note XVITL, p. 52. 

Geschichte der Philosophic, WerJce, XV. p. 275. See also, Philosophic der 
Religion, WerJce, XI. p. 24. Encyklopddie, § 19, 20, 21. Compare Schel- 
ling, Philosophic und Religion, p. 35, quoted by TVillm, Histoire de la Philos- 
ophic Allemande, vol. iii. p. 301. Schleiermacher (Christliche Glaube, § 80) 
is compelled in like manner to assert that God must be in some manner 
the author of evil ; an opinion which is also maintained by Mr. Parker, 
Theism, Atheism, and the Popular Theology, p. 119. 



256 NOTES. Lect. II. 

Note XIX., p. 52. 

" A thing is said to be finite in its kind, which can be limited by another 
of the same nature ; e. g. a body is called finite, because we always con- 
ceive of one greater." — Spinoza, Ethica, P. I, Def. II. 

Note XX., p. 52. 

See Aquinas, Summa, P. I. Qu. II. Art. 3; Qu. IX. Art. 1. "Actus 
simplicissimus," says Hobbes contemptuously, " signifieth nothing." * 
And Clarke in like manner observes, " Either the words signify nothing, 
or else they express only the perfection of his power." 2 

Note XXI., p. 52. 

See Plato, Republic, II. p. 381 ; Aristotle, Metaph. VIII. 8, 15; Augustine, 
Enarratio in Ps. IX. ii. De Trinitate, XV. c. 15; Hooker, E. P. b. I. c. 5; 
Descartes, Meditatio Tertia, p. 22. ed. 1G85; Spinoza, Ethica, P. I. Prop. xvii. 
Schol.; Hartley, Observations on Man, Prop, cxv.; Herder, Gott, Werke, 
VIII. p. 180; Schleiermacher, Christliche Glaube, § 54; Hegel, Werke, 
XIV. p. 290; Marheineke, Grundlehren der Christlichen Dogmatik, § 195. 
The conclusion, that God actually does all that he can do; and, conse- 
quently, that there is no possibility of free action in any finite being, can 
only be avoided by the admission, which is ultimately forced upon us, 
that our human conception of the infinite is not the true one. Miiller 
(Christliche Lehre von der Sunde, II. p. 251, third edit. ) endeavors to meet 
this conclusion by a counter-argument. He shows that it is equally a 
limitation of the divine Nature to suppose that God is compelled of neces- 
sity to realize in act everything which he has the power to accomplish. 
This argument completes the dilemma, and brings into full view the 
counter-impotences of human thought in relation to the infinite. We 
cannot conceive an Infinite Being as capable of becoming that which he is 
not; nor, on the other hand, can we conceive him as actually being all 
that he can be. 

Note XXII., p. 53. 
"Now it is sufficiently manifest, that a thing existing absolutely (i. e. 
not under relation), and a thing existing absolutely as a cause, are contry- 

1 Questions concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance, Animadversions, No. XXIV. 
See, on the other side, Bramhall, Works, vol. IV. p. 524. 

2 Demonstration, Prop. IV. See, on the other side, Hegel, Geschichte der Philos- 
ophic, Werke, XIV. p 290. 



Lect. II. NOTES. 257 

dictory. The former is the absolute negation of all relation; the latter is 
the absolute affirmation of a particular relation. A cause is a relative, and 
what exists absolutely as a cause, exists absolutely under relation. " — 
Sir \V. Hamilton, Discussions, p. 34. 

Note XXIII., p. 53. 

That a belief in creation is incompatible with a philosophy of the Abso- 
lute, was clearly seen by Fichte, who consistently denounces it, as a Jewish 
and Heathenish notion and the fundamental error of all false Metaphysics. 
He even goes so far as to maintain that St. John, the only teacher of true 
Christianity, did not believe in the Creation, and that the beginning of 
his Gospel was designed to contradict the Mosaic narrative. See his 
Anweisang zum seligen Leben ( Werke, v. p. 479). Compare Schelling, 
Bruno, p. 60, who regards the finite as necessarily coeternal with the 
infinite. So also Rothe, Theologische Ethik, § 40, asserts that the doctrine 
of a creation in time is inconsistent with the essential nature of God, as 
unchangeable and necessarily creative. Spinoza's attempted demonstra- 
tion that one substance cannot be produced from another, 1 though in itself 
a mere juggle of equivocal terms, yet, testifies in like manner to his con- 
viction, that to deny the possibility of creation is an indispensable step to 
a philosophy of the Absolute. Cognate to these theories are the specula- 
tions of Hermogenes, mentioned by Tertullian, Adv. Herm. c. 2; and of 
Origen, De Princ. I. 2. 10. Of the latter, Neander well observes: "Here, 
therefore, there occurred to him those reasons against a beginning of 
creation generally, which must ever suggest themselves to the reflecting 
mind, which cannot rest satisfied with simple faith in that which to 
itself is incomprehensible. Supposing that to create is agreeable to the 
divine essence, how is it conceivable that what is thus conformable to 
God's nature should at any time have been wanting? Why should not 
those attributes which belong to the very essence of the Deity, His 
almighty power and goodness, be always active ? A transition from the 
state of not-creating to the act of creation is inconceivable without a 
change, which is incompatible with the being of God." 2 

Note XXIV., p. 54. 

Arist. Metaph. XIV. 9. [Ed. Gul. Duval, Paris, 1629.] " If it have aught 
as the object of intelligence, and something other than itself be thus supe- 

1 Ethica, P. I. Prop. vi. 

2 Church History, English translation, Vol. II. p. 281, Bonn's edition. 

22* 



258 NOTES. Lect. II. 

rior to it, it will not be the Best (for then it will be intelligence only po- 
tentially, not essentially); since it is in the act of intelligence that the 
excellence lies. .... Itself, therefore, it has as the object of intelligence, if 
indeed it is the Supreme; and the intelligence is intelligence of intelli- 
gence." Plotinus, on the other hand, shows that even self-consciousness, 
as involving a logical distinction between the subject and object, is incom- 
patible with the notion of the Absolute. See Enn. V. 1. VI. c. 2. 



Note XXV., p. 54. 

Plotinus, Enn., III. 1. IX. c. 3. " The Intelligence is now twofold, and 
objectifies itself; and it is wanting in somewhat because it has 'the Well* 
(to e3) in the act of intelligence, not in the substance." Enn. V. 1. VI. c. 

2. " Being a duality it will not be the first, in itself it will properly 

be neither the intelligent nor the intelligible; for what is intelligible is so 
relatively to another." Enn. V. 1. VI. c. 6. "Therefore there will again 
be a duality in the conscious intelligence; but that (the first or the Abso- 
lute) is nowise a duality." Cf. Porphyr. Sent. XV. "But if there be 
plurality in the intelligible, since there is a plurality, not unity, in the 
objects of the conscious intelligence, then of necessity there must be 
plurality in the essence of the intelligence. But unity (the One) is prior 
to plurality, so that of necessity.it is prior to the intelligence." " The 
Absolute, as absolutely universal, is absolutely one ; absolute unity is con- 
vertible with the absolute negation of plurality and difference; the Absolute, 
and the Knowledge of the Absolute, are therefore identical. But knowledge, 
or intelligence, supposes a plurality of terms —the plurality of subject and 
object. Intelligence, whose essence is plurality, cannot therefore be iden- 
tified with the Absolute, whose essence is unity; and if known, the Abso- 
lute, as known, must be different from the Absolute, as existing ; that is, 
there must be two Absolutes — an Absolute in knowledge and an Absolute 
in existence : which is contradictory."— Sir W. Hamilton, Discussions, p. 32. 

Note XXVI., p. 54. 

Clem. Alex. Strom. V. 12. p. 587. " Nor, indeed, would any one rightly 

call it a whole, for the whole is predicated of magnitude nor can it 

be said to have parts, for the One is indivisible." Plotinus, Enn. V. 1. VI. 
c. 5. " For of a thing that is absolutely one, how can you predicate the 
coming to itself, or the want of consciousness?" On this point, the 
earlier and later forms of Pantheism are divided against each other. 
Spinoza (Eth. P. I. Dcf. 6) defines the Deity as composed of an infinite 



LECT. II. NOTES. 259 

number of attributes. " By the Deity I understand a Being absolutely 
infinite, r. e., a substance consisting of infinite attributes, every one of 
which expresses eternal and infinite essence/' Hegel, on the contrary, in 
his Lectures on the proofs of the existence of God, regards a plurality of 
attributes as incompatible with the idea of the Infinite. "Here ft. e. in 
the absolute unity of God) the plurality of predicates — which only subjec- 
tively are bound in unity, but in themselves would be distinguished, and 
so would come into opposition and into contradiction — shows itself as 
something false, and the plurality of determinations (in the notion of 
God) as an impertinent category." 1 The lesson to be learnt from both is 
the same. No human form of thought can represent the Infinite: — a 
truth which Spinoza attempts to evade by multiplying such forms to infin- 
ity, and Hegel by renouncing human thought altogether. 



Note XXVII., p. 54. 

That the Absolute cannot be conceived as composed of a plurality of 
attributes, but only as the one substance conceived apart from all plu- 
rality, is shown by Plotinus, Enn. V. 1. VI., c. 3. " If it be said that 
nothing hinders this same (i. e. the First) being the Many, the answer must 
be, that these Many have an underlying One (One Subject, viroKeifieuov) ; for 
the Many cannot exist, except there exist the One from which the Many 

must be derived, and in which the Many must exist and this One 

must be taken as in itself the only One.". . . .Compare Proclus, Inst.Theol. 
c. 1. "All plurality in some way partakes of Unity (or the One), for if 
not, then neither will the whole be One, nor each one of the many which 
make up the plurality; but of certain entities each will be a plurality, and 
this on to an infinite, and of these infinites each again will be an infinite 
plurality." To the same effect is the reasoning of Augustine, De Trinitaie, 
vi. c. 6. 7. " In every body magnitude is one thing, color another, figure 
another. For the magnitude diminished, the color may remain the same, 
and the figure the same; and the figure changed, the body may be just as 
large and of just the same color; and whatever other things are predicated 
of the body, may exist together, and may be changed without change on 
the part of the rest. And thus the nature of the body is proved to be 

manifold, but in nowise simple But also in the soul since it is one 

thing to be ingenious, another to be dull, another to be acute, another to 
have a good memory; since desire is one thing, fear another, joy another, 
sorrow another; and since there can be found in the nature of the soul 

1 Werke, XII. p. 419. See r.!so EncyMopddie, § 28 ( Werke, VI. p. 62). 



260 NOTES. Lect. II. 

some things without others, and some more, and some less, and these to a 
number beyond all computation ; — it is manifest that the nature of the 
soul is not simple but manifold, for nothing simple is changeable; but 
every created being is changeable. But God indeed is said to be in various 
ways great, good, wise, happy, true, and whatever else is not unworthily 
predicable of Him; but his greatness is the same as his wisdom; for he 
is great, not in quantity, but in quality; and his goodness is the same as 
his wisdom and greatness, and his truth the same as all these; and with 
Him the being happy is not different from being great, or wise, or true, or 
good, or from being Himself." See also Aquinas, Summa, P. I. Qu. III. 
Art. 5, 6, 7. Schleiermacher, Christliche Glaube, § 50. 



Note XXVIII., p. 55. 

See Plato, Republic, II. p. 380, VI. p. 511, VII. p. 517; Timceus, p. 31. 
Aristotle, Metaph. XI. 8, 18: 10, 14; Eth. Nic. VII. 14, 8. Cicero, Tusc. 
Qucest. I. 29; De Nat. Deor. II. 11. Plotinus, Enn. II. 9, 1, III. 9, 3. V. 4. 1, 
VI. 5, 1 : 9, 6. Proclus, Inst. Theol. c. i. xxii. lix. exxxiii. Clemens Alex., 
Strom. V. p. 587. Origen, De Princ. I. 1, 6. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, VIII. 
6: De Trinitate, VI. 6, VII. 1, XV. 5, 13. Aquinas, Summa, P. I. Qu. III. 
Art. 7, Qu. VII. Art. 2. Qu. XL Art. 3. Leibnitz, Monadologie, § 39, 40, 47. 
Clarke, Demonstration, Prop. vi. vii. Schelling, Vom Ich, § 9; Bruno, p. 
1S5. Rothe, Theol Ethik, § 8. 

Note XXIX., p. 55. 

"Hence, therefore, it is evident, that nothing is called one or unique, 
except after some other has been conceived, which agrees with it. But 
since the existence of God belongs to his own essence, and of his essence 
we cannot form a universal idea, it is certain that he who calls God one 
or unique, can have no idea of God, or speaks improperly of Him." — 
Spinoza, Epist. L. Compare Schleiermacher, CJiristliche Glaube, § 56. 

Note XXX., p. 56. 

"For the expression, l if it be possible, 1 referred not merely to the power 
of God, but also to his justice; for, as to the power of God, all things are 
possible, whether just or unjust; but as to his justice, He being not only 
powerful, but just, not all things are possible, but only those which are 
just."— Origen in St. Matt. xxvi. 42; compare c. Celsum, III. 70. Origen 
speaks still more strongly in a remarkable fragment of the De Principiis, 



Lect. II. NOTES. 261 

which has been preserved in the original : " In that beginning (i. e., at the 
creation) God determined (to create) as great a number of intelligent 
beings as might be sufficient; for we must say that the divine power was 
limited, nor under pretence of praise take away all limitation of it; for if 
the divine power were unlimited, then, necessarily, it did not have a con- 
sciousness of itself." The language of Hooker (E. P. b. I. ch. 2. § 3) is more 
cautious and reverent, but contains the same acknowledgment of what, 
from a human point of view, is limitation. " If, therefore, it be demanded 
why, God having power and ability infinite, the effects notwithstanding 
of that power are all so limited as we see they are; the reason hereof is 
the end which he hath proposed, and the law whereby his wisdom hath 
stinted the effects of his. power in such sort, that it doth not work infi- 
nitely, but correspondently unto that end for which it worketh." Some 
excellent remarks on the limitation of man's faculties with regard to the 
Divine Attributes, will be found in Mr. Meyrick's sermon, God's Revelation 
and Man's Moral Sense considered in reference to the Sacrifice of the Cross, p. 
14. See the Collection of Sermons on Christian Faith and the Atonement, 
Oxford, 1856. 



Note XXXI., p. 56. 

Thus Spinoza (Ethica, P. I. Prop. 26) says, "A thing which was de- 
termined to the doing of somewhat, was necessarily so determined by 
God ; " and, carrying the same theory to its inevitable consequence, he 
consistently maintains (P. IV. Prop. 64) that the notion of evil only 
exists in consequence of the inadequacy of our ideas. Hegel in like man- 
ner (EncyH. § 35) reduces evil to a mere negation, which may be iden- 
tified with good in the absolute. See also above, note 18, p. 231. 



Note XXXII., p. 56. 

Plato, Rep. II. p. 381. "Does He, then, change Himself into some- 
thing better and nobler, or into something worse and baser than Himself? 
Necessarily, said he, into something better, for we cannot say that God is 
wanting in any good or noble quality. Exactly so; and that being the 
case, does it seem to you, that any one, whether God or man, would vol- 
untarily make himself worse in any respect? " Compare Augustine, In 
Joannis Evangelium, Tract. XXIII. 9. "You do not find in God any 
changeableness, anything which is different now, from what it was a little 
while ago. For where you find difference, there has taken place a kind of 
death; for that is death, the not being what (one) was. Whatever there- 



262 NOTES. Lect. II. 

fore, undergoes this sort of death, whether from the better to the worse, 
or from the worse to the better, — that is not God." And so Jacobi ( Von 
den gottlichen Dingen, Werhe, III. p. 391) says of the system of Schelling: 
" Consider that the one only living and true God (Nature) cannot become 
greater or less, higher or lower; but that this God, equivalent to Nature 
or the Universe, remains, from eternity to eternity, ever one and the same, 
in quality and in quantity. It would, therefore, be absolutely impossible 
for Him to bring about any change in Himself, without being changea- 
bleness, temporalness, change itself. This changeableness, however, is, we 
are told, in its root, an Unchangeable, namely, the holy, ever-creating orig- 
inal force of the world; in its fruit, on the contrary, in the real world, an 
absolutely changeable, so that in each single determined momentum the All of 
beings is nothing. Accordingly, the creative word of the naturalistic God 
is incontestibly, Let there be Nothing! He calls forth Not-Being from 
Being; as the God of theism calls forth Being from Not-Being." Compare 
Sir W. Hamilton's criticism of Cousin, Discussions, p. 36; and see also 
above, note 23, p. 233. 

Note XXXIII., p. 57. 

" What," says Sir W. Hamilton, " is our thought of creation? It is not 
a thought of the mere springing of nothing into something. On the con- 
trary, creation is conceived, and is by us conceivable, only as the evolu- 
tion of existence from possibility into actuality, by the flat of the Deity. 
.... And what is true of our concept of creation, holds of our concept of 
annihilation. We can think no real annihilation, — no absolute sinking 
of something into nothing. But as creation is cogitable by us, only as a 
putting forth of Divine power, so is annihilation by us only conceivable, 
as a withdrawal of that same power. All that is now actually existent in 
the universe, this we think and must think, as having, prior to creation, 
virtually existed in the Creator; and in imagining the universe to be anni- 
hilated, we can only conceive this, as the retractation by the Deity of an 
overt energy into latent power. In short, it is impossible for the human 
mind to think what it thinks existent, lapsing into absolute non-existence, 
either in time past or in time future." 1 With all deference to this great 

l Discussions, p 620. Compare a remarkable passage in Herder's Gott ( Werkp. 
VIII. p. 241) where the author maintains a similar view of the impossibility of 
conceiving creation from or reduction to nothing. But, Herder is speaking as a 
professed defender of Spinoza. Sir W. Hamilton's system is in all its essential 
features the direct antagonist of Spinoza; and even in the present passage thfl 
apparently pantheistic hypothesis is represented as the result not of thought, but 
of an inability to think. Still it is to be regretted that the distinguished author 
should have used language liable to be misunderstood in this respect, especially 
as it scarcely accords with the general principles of his own system. 



Lect. II. NOTES. 263 

philosopher, I cannot help thinking that a different representation would 
have been more in harmony with the main principles of his own system. 
We cannot conceive creation at all, neither as a springing of nothing into 
something, nor as an evolution of the relative from the absolute; for tho 
simple reason that the first terms of both hypotheses, nothing and the 
absolute, are equally beyond the reach of human conception. But while 
creation, as a process in the act of being accomplished, is equally inconceiv- 
able on every hypothesis, creation, as a result already completed, presents 
no insurmountable difficulty to human thought if we consent to abandon 
the attempt to apprehend the absolute. There is no difficulty in conceiv- 
ing that the amount of existence in the universe may at one time be rep- 
resented by A, and at another by A + B : though we are equally unable 
to conceive how B can come out of nothing, and how A, or any part of A, 
can become B while A remains undiminished. But the result, no less 
than the process, becomes self-contradictory, when we attempt to conceive 
A as absolute and infinite ; for in that case A 4- B must be something 
greater than infinity. 

Note XXXIV., p. 59. 

" Pantheism teaches that all is good, for all is only one ; and that every 
appearance of what we call wrong is only an empty delusion. Hence its 
disturbing influence upon the life; for here, — turn about language as we 
may, and attach ourselves as w^e will to the faith that everywhere comes 
forth through the voice of conscience, — yet at bottom, if we remain true to 
the destructive principle of the pantheistic doctrine, we must do away with 
and declare null and void, the eternal distinction between good and evil, 
between right and wrong." — F. Schlegel, Ueber die Sprache unci Weishelt 
der Indier, b. III. c. 2. (Werke, VIII. p. 324). "If it is God who thinks in 
me, my thought is absolute; not only am I unable to think otherwise 
than I do think, . . . but I can make no choice in my conceptions, approve 
or search after some, reject and shun others, all being necessary and per- 
fect, all being divine; in fine, I become a machine for thinking, an intelli- 
gent machine, but irresponsible." — Bartholmess, Btstoire des doctrines relig- 
ieuses de la philosophic moderne, Introduction, p, xxxvii. These necessary 
consequences of Pantheism are fully exhibited by Spinoza, Ethica, P. I. 
Prop. 2(3; P. II. Props. 32, 33, 34, 35; P. IV. Prop. 64. Hegel ( Werke, XI. 
pp. 95, 208, 390) endeavors, not very successfully, to defend his own phi- 
losophy from the charge of Pantheism and its consequences. His defence 
amounts to no more than the assertion that God cannot be identified with 
the universe of finite objects, in a system in which finite objects have no 
real existence. Thus explained, the system is identical with Pantheism 



264 ft o t e s . Lect. IL 

in the strictest sense of the term. All that is proved is, that it cannot with 
equal propriety he called Pantatheism. 

Note XXXV., p. 59. 

" The dialectic intellect, by the exertion of its own powers exclusively, 
can lead us to a general affirmation of the supreme reality of an absolute 
being. But here it stops. It is utterly incapable of communicating in- 
sight or conviction concerning the existence or possibility of the world, as 
different from Deity. It finds itself constrained to identify, more truly to 
confound, the Creator with the aggregate of his creatures, and, cutting the 
knot which it cannot untwist, to deny altogether the reality of all finite 
existence, and then to shelter itself from its own dissatisfaction, its own 
importunate queries, in the wretched evasion that of nothings no solution 
can be required: till pain haply, and anguish, and remorse, with bitter 
scoff and moody laughter inquire, — Are we then indeed nothings? — till 
through every organ of sense nature herself asks, — How and whence did 
this sterile and pertinacious nothing acquire its plural number? — Uncle, 
quceso, hcec niliili in nihila tarn portenlosa transnihilatio f — and lastly : — What 
is that inward mirror, in and for which these nothings have at least relative 
existence? " — Coleridge, The Friend, vol. III. p. 213. 

Note XXXVI., p. 59. 

The limitation, speculative Atheism, is necessary; for the denial of the 
Infinite does not in every case constitute practical Atheism. For it is not 
under the form of the Infinite that the idea of God is distinctly presented 
in worship; and it is possible to adore a superior Being, without pos- 
itively asking how far that superiority extends. It is only when we are 
able to investigate the problem of the relation between the infinite and the 
finite, and to perceive that the latter cannot be regarded as expressing the 
true idea of the Deity, that the denial of the infinite becomes atheism in 
speculation. On the alternative between Christianity and Atheism, some 
excellent remarks will be found in the Restoration of Belief , p. 248. 

Note XXXVII., p. 60. 

"Much stress is wont to be laid upon the limits of thought, and it is as- 
serted that the limit cannot be transcended. In this assertion lies the 
unconsciousness, that even in fixing somewhat as limit, it has already been 
transcended. For a determination, a bound, is determined as limit, only 



Lect. II. NOTES 265 

in opposition to its Other (alterum), its Unlimited; thQOther (the correlate), 
of a limit is something beyond it." — Hegel, Logik ( Werke, III. p. 136). 
Compare Encyklojwdie, § 60 (Werke, VI., p. 121). In maintaining that 
a limit as such always implies something beyond, and, consequently, 
that the notion of a limited universe is self-contradictory, Hegel is 
unquestionably right; but he is wrong in attempting to infer from 
thence the non-limitation of thought. For that which is limited is not 
necessarily limited by something of the same kind; — nay, the very con- 
ception of kinds is itself a limitation. Hence the consciousness that 
thought is limited by something beyond itself, by no means implies that 
thought itself transcends that limit. A prisoner chained up feels that his 
motion is limited, by his inability to move into the space which he sees or 
imagines beyond the length of his chain. On Hegel's principles, he ought 
to know his inability by actually moving into it. 

Note XXXVIII., p. 60. 

These opposite limitations fall under the general law of the Conditioned 
enunciated by Sir W. Hamilton. " The mind is astricted to think in cer- 
tain forms ; and, under these, thought is possible only in the conditioned 
interval between two unconditioned contradictory extremes or poles, each 
of which is altogether inconceivable, but of which, on the principle of Ex- 
cluded Middle, the one or the other is necessarily true." * The lamented 
author has left us only a few fragmentary specimens of the application of 
this canon to the vexed questions of metaphysical speculation, and the 
principal one of these, in some of its details, may be open to objections; 
but the truth of the principle itself is unquestionable; and its value, rightly 
applied, in confining the inquiries of philosophy within their legitimate 
boundaries, can hardly be estimated too highly. 

Note XXXIX., p. 60. 

" Every finite is, by virtue of its notion, bounded by its opposite; and 
absolute finiteness is a self-contradictory notion." — Fichte, Grundlage der 
gesammten Wissenschaftslehre ( Werke, I., p. 185). 

Note XL., p. 63. 

Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, p. 98, 122, 137. For 
the influence of Kant on the rationalist theology, see Rosenkranz, Geschichte 

1 Discussions, p. 618. 

23 



266 NOTES. LECT. II. 

der Kanfschen Philosophie, b. III. cap. 2. Amand Saintes, Histoire du 
Rationalisme en Allemagne, 1. II. ch. II. Kalmis, History of German Pro- 
testantism, translated by Meyer, p. 167. 

Note XLL, p. 63. 

Paulus, in the preface to his Leben Jesu, expressly adopts, though with- 
out naming the author, Kant's theory, that miracles are indifferent to 
religion, and that the whole essence of Christianity consists in morality. 
Consistently with these principles, he maintains (§2) that the historical 
inquirer can admit no event as credible which cannot be explained by 
natural causes. The entire details of the evangelical narrative are ex- 
plained by this method. The miracles of healing were performed by med- 
ical skill, which Christ imparted to his disciples, and thus was enabled to 
heal, not by a word, but by deputy. Thus he coolly translates the words 
of the centurion, Matt. viii. 8, " If He would only give an order to one of 
His (disciples), to provide in His name for the healing." The feeding of 
the five thousand consisted merely in persuading the richer travellers to 
share their provisions with the poorer. The stilling of the tempest was 
effected by steering round a point which cut off the wind. Lazarus, and 
the widow's son of Nain, were both cases of premature interment. Our 
Lord's own death was merely a swoon, from which he was restored by the 
warmth of the sepulchre and the stimulating effect of the spices. Such 
are a few specimens of historical inquiry. The various explanations of 
Paulus are examined in detail, and completely refuted by Strauss. The 
natural hypothesis had to be annihilated, to make way for the mythical. 

Note XLIL, p. 63. 

Wegscheider, though he expressly rejects Kant's allegorizing interpre- 
tations of Scripture (see Institutiones Theologice, § 25), agrees with him in 
maintaining the supreme authority of reason in all religious questions, 
and in accommodating all religious doctrines to Ethical precepts {Praif. p. 
viii. ix.). Accordingly, in the place of the allegory, he adopts the con- 
venient theory of adaptation to the prejudices of the age; by which a critic 
is enabled at once to set aside all doctrines which do not harmonize with 
his theory. Among the doctrines thus rejected, as powerless for the 
true end of religion, and useless or even prejudicial to piety, are those of 
the Trinity, the Atonement, the Conniption of human nature, Justification, 
and the Resurrection of the body. See § 51. 



Lect. II. NOTES. 267 



Note XLIIL, p. 63. 

See his Grand-und-Glaubens-Satze der Evangellscli-Protestantischen Kirciie, 
p. 70 (2nd edition). This work of Ruhr was principally directed against 
the Lutheran Symbolical books ; but the Catholic Creeds are also included 
in his sweeping condemnations. Of the Apostles' Creed he observes: 
" Our age needs a more logically correct, and a more comprehensive sur- 
vey of the pure evangelical faith than is afforded by the so-called Apostles' 
Creed, which is good for its immediate and ordinary purpose, but too 
short, too aphoristic, and too historical for that which is here proposed/' 
(p. 49.) Of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds he remarks in a note: 
" The Niceno-Constantinopolitan and the pseudo-Athanasian Creeds, with 
their decidedly anti-scriptural dogmas, are here altogether out of the 
question, however much they were admitted by the reformers, in all hon- 
esty and faith, as truly scriptural." Ruhr agrees with Kant in separating 
the historical facts of Christianity from the religion itself (p. 157), and in 
maintaining that morality is the only mode of honoring God (p. 56). His 
proposed creed, from which everything "historical" is studiously ex- 
cluded, runs as follows : 

" There is one true God, proclaimed to us by his only-begotten Son, Jesus 
Christ. To this God, as the most perfect of all Beings, as the Creator, 
Sustainer, and Governor of the world, and as the Father and Instructor of 
men and of all rational spirits, the deepest veneration is due. This vener- 
ation is best rendered by active striving after virtue and righteousness, by 
zealous control of the inclinations and passions of our sensual and evilly- 
disposed nature, and by honest, entire fulfilment of our duty, according to 
the exalted example of Jesus, whereby we may assure ourselves of the aid 
of his divine Spirit. In the consciousness of the filial relation into which 
we thereby enter with him, we may, in earthly need, reckon with confi- 
dence on his fatherly help, in the feeling of our moral weakness and 
unworthiness, upon his grace and mercy assured to us through Christ, and 
in the moment of death be assured that we shall continue to exist immor- 
tally, and receive a recompense in a better life." 

The celebrated Brief e uber den Rationalismus, by the same author, have at 
least the merit of being an honest and logical exposition of Rationalist 
principles and their consequences, without disguise or compromise. The 
commendation, however, to which in this respect the work is partly 
entitled, cannot be extended to the concluding letter, in which the author 
endeavors to establish, for himself and his fellow rationalists, the right to 
discharge the spiritual functions, and subscribe to the confessions, of a 
church whose doctrines they disbelieve; and even to make use of their 
position to unsettle the faith of the young committed to their instruction. 



268 NOTES. Lect. II. 



Note XLIY., p. 63. 

The character of Hegel's philosophy in this respect is sufficiently shown 
by Strauss, Streitschriften, Heft III. p. 57, sqq. 



Note XLV., p. 63. 

Vatke's Religion des Alten Testamentes, forms the first part of his Biblische 
Theologie ivissenschafllich dargestelll; Berlin, 1835. In the Introduction 
(§ 7, 12, 13) the author lays down a law of the development of religion as 
a process of the infinite spirit in self-revelation, according to the principles 
of the Hegelian philosophy. As a consequence of this law he maintains 
that it is impossible for an individual to raise himself, even by the aid of 
divine revelation, above the spiritual position of his age, or for a nation to 
rise or fall from its normal stage of religious cultivation (pp. 87, 181). By 
this canon the entire narrative of Scripture is made to stand or fall. The 
account of a primitive revelation and subsequent alienation from God, 
must be rejected, because the human consciousness must attain to perfec- 
tion through a succession of progressive stages (p. 102). The book of 
Genesis has no historical value; and we cannot decide whether the patri- 
archs before Moses had any knowledge of the one true God (pp. 180, 184). 
Moses himself, as represented in the scriptural account, is altogether 
inconceivable ; for he appears at a period when, according to the laws of 
historical development, the time was not yet ripe for him (p. 183). Much 
of the history of Moses must be regarded as a mythus, invented by the 
priests at a later period (p. 186). The political institutions attributed to 
him could not possibly have been founded by him (p. 211). The ceremo- 
nial laws are such as could neither have been discovered by an individual 
nor made known by divine revelation (p. 218). The Passover was originally 
a feast of the sun, in celebration of his entering into the sign Aries ; which 
fully accounts for the offering of a male lamb (p. 492). As regards the 
decalogue, the second commandment must be considered as an interpola- 
tion of a later date; for it implies a higher degree of abstraction than 
could have been reached in the Mosaic age (p. 234). The lapses into 
idolatry recorded in the book of Judges, arc highly improbable; for 
a whole people cannot fall back from a higher to a lower state of relig- 
ious culture (p. 181). The books of Samuel betray their legendary 
origin by the occurrence of round numbers, and by the significant names 
of the first three kings (p. 289). The wisdom attributed to Solomon is 
irreconcilable with his subsequent idolatry; and the account must there- 
fore be regarded as legendary (p. 309). Such are a few of the results of 



Lect. II. NOTES. 269 

the so-called philosophy of history, exercised on the narrative of Scrip- 
ture. The book is valuable in one respect, and in one only. It shows the 
reckless manner in which rationalism finds it necessary to deal with the 
sacred text, before it can be accommodated to the antisupernatural 
hypothesis. To those who believe that a record of facts as they are is 
more trustworthy than a theory of facts as they ought to be on philo- 
sophical principles, the very features which the critic is compelled to 
reject, become additional evidence of the truth of the scripture narrative. 

Note XLVL, p. 63. 

The Hegelian element of Strauss's Leben Jem is briefly exhibited at the 
end of the book (§ 150). The body of the work is mainly occupied with 
various cavils, some of them of the very minutest philosophy, designed to 
invalidate the historical character of the Gospel narratives. Among these 
precious morsels of criticism, we meet with such objections as the follow- 
ing. That the name of the angel Gabriel is of Hebrew origin (§ 17). 
That the angel, instead of inflicting dumbness on Zacharias, ought to have 
merely reprimanded him (ibid.). That a real angel w r ould not have pro- 
claimed the advent of the Messiah in language so strictly Jewish (§ 25). 
That the appearance of the star to the magi would have strengthened the 
popular belief in the false science of astrology (§ 34). That John the 
Baptist, being an ascetic, and therefore necessarily prejudiced and narrow- 
minded, could not have considered himself inferior to one who did 
not practise similar mortifications (§ 36). That Jesus could not have sub- 
mitted to the rite of baptism, because that rite symbolized a future Mes- 
siah (§ 49). That if there is a personal devil, he cannot take a visible 
form (§ 54). That it is improbable that Jesus, when he read in the syna- 
gogue, should have lighted on an apposite passage of the prophet Isaiah 
(§ 58). That Jesus could not have known that the woman of Samaria 
had had five husbands, because it is not probable that each of them had 
left a distinct image in her mind, and because a minute knowledge of the 
history of individuals is degrading to the prophetic dignity (§ 69). That 
it is impossible to understand " how he, whose vocation had reference to 
the depths of the human heart, should be tempted to occupy himself with 
the fish-frequented depths of the waters" (§ 71). That Jesus could not 
have ridden into Jerusalem on an ass whereon never man sat, because 
unbroken asses are difficult to manage (§ 110). That the resurrection of 
the dead ^ is impossible, because the inferior principles, whose work is 
corruption, will not be inclined to surrender back the dominion of the 
body to its former master, the soul (§ 140). That the ascension of Christ 

23* 



270 NOTES. Lect. II. 

is impossible, because a body which has flesh and bones cannot be quali- 
fied for a heavenly abode ; because it cannot liberate itself from the laws 
of gravity; and because it is childish to regard heaven as a definite local- 
ity (§ 142). — It is not creditable to the boasted enlightenment of the age, 
that a work which can seriously urge such petty quibbles as these should 
have obtained so much reputation and influence. In studying the philos- 
ophy which has given birth to such consequences, we see a new verifica- 
tion of the significant remark of Clemens Alexandrinus : " The philoso- 
phy, which is according to the divine tradition, establishes and confirms 
providence ; take this away, and the Saviour's economy appears to be a 
myth." * " Strauss, the Hegelian theologian," says Sir W. Hamilton, 
" sees in Christianity only a mythus. Naturally : for his Hegelian ' Idea/ 
itself a myth, and confessedly finding itself in everything, of course finds 
in anything a myth." 2 As the labors of Strauss on the Gospel narratives 
have been sometimes compared to those of Niebuhr on the history of 
Rome, it may be instructive to peruse the opinion of the great historian 
on the cognate theories of a few years' earlier date. " In my opinion," 
writes Niebuhr in 1818, "he is not a Protestant Christian, who does not 
receive the historical facts of Christ's earthly life, in their literal accepta- 
tion, with all their miracles, as equally authentic with any event recorded in 
history, and whose belief in them is not as firm and tranquil as his belief 
in the latter; who has not the utmost faith in the articles of the Apostles' 
Creed, taken in their grammatical sense; who does not consider every 
doctrine and every precept of the New Testament as undoubted divine 
revelation, in the sense of the Christians of the first century, who knew 
nothing of a Theopneustia. Moreover, a Christianity after the fashion of 
the modern philosophers and pantheists, without a personal God, without 
immortality, without human individuality, without historical faith, is no 
Christianity at all to me; though it may be very intellectual, very ingen- 
ious philosophy. I have often said that I do not know what to do with a 
metaphysical God, and that I will have none but the God of the Bible, 
who is heart to heart with us." 3 

Niebuhr did not live to witness the publication of the Leben Jesu; but 
the above passage is as appropriate as if it had been part of an actual 
review of that work. 

Note XLVIL, p. 63. 

With Feuerbach's Wesen des Cliristenthums I am only acquainted 
through the French translation by M. Ewcrbeck, which forms the prin- 

1 Stromata, I. ii. p. 296. 2 Discussions, p. 787 [696, ed. 1852]. 

3 Life and Letters of B. G. Niebuhr vol. II. p. 123. 



Lect.IL notes. 271 

cipal portion of the volume entitled Qu'est-ce que la Religion d'apres la 
nouvelle Philosophie Allemande. The following extracts will sufficiently 
show the character of the work. " The grand mystery, or rather the 
grand secret of religion, is here: man objectifies his being, and alter 
having objectified it, he makes himself the object of this new subject." 
(p. 129.) " God is the notion, the personified idea of personality. He is 
the apotheosis of the human person, the I without the Thou, the subjec- 
tivity separate from the universe; the self-sufficient egoity." (p. 219.) 
" God is the notion of kind, but the notion personified and individualized 
in its turn ; He is the notion of kind or its essence, and this essence as 
universal entity, as comprising all possible perfections, as possessing all 
human qualities cleared of their limitations." (p. 271.) " Where religion 
expresses the relation between man and the human essence, it is good 
and humanitary. Where it expresses the relation between man and 
the human essence changed to a supernatural being, it is illogical, false, 
and carries in it the germ of all those horrors which have been desolating 
society for sixty centuries." (p. 340.) " Atheism is the fruit of the contra- 
diction in the existence of God we are told that God exists really 

and not really at the same time, we have then a perfect right to cut the 
matter short with such an absurd existence, and to say : there is no God." 
(p. 350.) "From the preceding we infer, that the divine personality, 
of which man avails himself to attribute his own ideas and his own 
qualities to a superhuman being, is nothing but the human personality 
externalized to the I. It is this psychological act which has become 
the basis of the speculative doctrine of Hegel, which teaches, that the 
consciousness that man has of God is the consciousness that God has of 
man." (p. 390.) The occasional notes which the translator has added to 
this work are, if possible, still more detestable than the text. So much 
disregard of truth and decency as is shown in some of his remarks on 
Christianity has probably seldom been compressed into the same compass. 

Note XL Yin., p. 65. 

" Christ, who taught his disciples, and us in them, how to pray, pro- 
pounded not the knowledge of God, though without that he could not 
hear us; neither represented he his power, though without that he cannot 
help us ; but comprehended all in this relation, When ye pray, say, Our 
Father." — Pearson on the Creed, article I. 



272 NOTES. Lect. III. 



LECTURE III. 

Note I., p. 69. 

" Whatever is for us something is so only so far as it is not something 
else ; all position is possible only by negation ; as indeed the word itself 
define means nothing else but limit." — Fichte, Gerichtliche Verantwortung 
( Werlce, V. p. 265). "The Finite exists in relation to its Other (the other 
of it, alterum), which is its negation, and puts itself there as its limit." 
"Hegel, Encylcl. § 28 ( Werhe, VI. p. 63). Compare Plotinus, Enn. V. 1. 
III. c. 12. "But that is the One itself, without the Something (i. e. not 
some one thing); for if it were the some one thing, then it would not be 
the One itself; for the One itself is prior to the Something." — Enn. VI. 1. 
VII. c. 39. " For the Intelligence, if it is to exercise intelligence, must 

alwaj^s apprehend difference and identity." — Spinoza, Epist. 50. 

"This determination, therefore, does not belong to the (or a) thing in its 
own esse, but, on the contrary, belongs to its non-esse." The canon, unde- 
niable from a human point of view, that all consciousness is limitation, 
seems to have had some influence on modern philosophical theories con- 
cerning the Divine Nature. Thus Hegel maintains that God must become 
limited to be conscious of himself, 1 and defines Religion as the Divine 
Spirit's knowledge of himself, by means of the finite Spirit. 2 



Note II., p. 70. 

" For being limited (finite) ourselves, it would be absurd for us to make 
some determination of the infinite, and thus endeavor to limit it, as it were, 
and comprehend it."— Descartes, Principia, I. 26. " The second reason of 
our short and imperfect notions of the Deity is, the Infinity of it. For this 
we must observe, That we can perfectly know and comprehend nothing, but 
as it is represented to us under some certain Bounds and Limitations. . . . 
Upon which account, what a loss must we needs be at, in understanding 
or knowing the Divine Nature, when the very way of our knowing seems 
to carry in it something opposite to the thing known. For the way of 
knowing is by defining, limiting, and determining; and the thing known 
is that of which there neither are, nor can be, any Bounds, Limits, Defini- 
tions, or Determinations." — South, Animadversions upon Sherlock, ch. II. p. 
55. ed. 1693. " All our thinking is a limiting; and exactly in this respect 

1 Werhe, XI. p. 193. 2 Ibid., p. 200. 



Lect. in. NOTES. 273 

is it called apprehending ; i. e., comprehending something from out of a 
mass of determinable; so that there always may remain something outside 
the boundary -line, which has not been included {imprehended) within it, — 
and so does not belong to that which has been apprehended."— Fichte, 
Geruhtliche Veranticortung ( Werke, V. p. 265). "What I apprehend (or 
have an idea of) becomes finite by my mere apprehending, and this, even 
by endless ascending, never comes to the infinite."— Fichte, Bestimmung <hs 
Menschen ( Werke, II. p. 304). " The subject without predicate is, what in 
the appearance the thing is without attributes, whatthe thing is in itself, an 
empty, undetermined ground; it is the notion in itself, which only in the 
predicate gets a distinction and definiteness." — Hegel, JLogik, Th. II. 
( Werke, V. p. 70). Compare Philosophie der Religion ( Werke, XI. p. 30). 
Encykbpddie § 28, 29 ( Werke, YI. p. 65). 

Note III., p. 70. 

The opposite sides of this contradiction are indicated in the following 
passages. Aristotle, Phys. III. 6, [10,] 13 : " The Infinite .... is the whole 
potentially, but not actually.". . . . Compare Jfetaph. viii. [ix. Ed. Gul. 
Duval, Paris, 1029] 8, 16: "That, therefore, which is capable of being, 
may both be and not be; the same thing, therefore, is capable both of 
being and of not being. But that, which is capable of not being, may 
not be; and that, which may not be, is corruptible Nothing, there- 
fore, of things simply incorruptible, is potentially simply being." For a 
full discussion of the distinction between potentiality and actuality (the 
dvua/jLis and evTeAe'xeia or ivepyeia of Aristotle), see Trendelenburg on 
Arist. Be Anima, p. 295. Compare Arist. Metaph. viii. [ix. Ed. Gul. Duval.] 
6, 2: " It is actuality when a thing is really so, not as when we say poten- 
tially. For we say potentially as (of) the Hermes in the wood, and the half 
in the whole, because it might be taken out; and so, too, a learned man, 
of one who is not really versed in learning, if he have the capacity for 
learning.". . . . This distinction plays a part in the controversy between 
Bramhall and Hobbes, the former of whom says, " The nearer that any- 
thing comes to the essence of God, the more remote it is from our appre- 
hension. But shall we, therefore, make potentialities and successive 
duration, and former and latter, or a part without a part (as they say), to 
be in God? Because we are not able to understand clearly the Divine 
perfection, we must not therefore attribute any imperfection to Him." 1 
To this Hobbes replies, " Nor do I understand what derogation it can be 
to the divine perfection, to attribute to it potentiality, that is, in English, 

l Works, vol. IV. p. 158. 



274 NOTES. Lect. III. 

power." 1 " By potentiality ," retorts Bramhall, " he understandeth ' power 
or might; others understand possibility or indetermination. Is not he 
likely to confute the Schoolmen to good purpose ? " 2 Hobbes concludes 
by saying, " There is no such word as potentiality in the Scriptures, nor 
in any author of the Latin tongue. It is found only in School divinity, 
as a word of art, or rather as a word of craft, to amaze and puzzle the 
laity." 3 This charge may be answered in the words of Trendelenburg. 
" In unfolding these notions, drawn forth from the very recess of philoso- 
phy, we are forced into such straits by the laxness and the poverty of the 
Latin tongue in matters pertaining to philosophy, that we must have 
recourse, for the sake of perspicuity, to scholastic terms." 4 

But to go from the word to the thing. The contradiction thus involved 
in the notion of the Infinite has given rise to two opposite representations 
of it ; the one, as the affirmation of all reality ; the other, as the negation 
of all reality. The older metaphysicians endeavored to exhaust the 
infinite by an endless addition of predicates; hence arose the favorite 
representation of God, as the Ens perfectissimum, or sum of all realities, 
which prevailed in the Wolfian Philosophy, and was accepted by Kant. 5 
On the other hand, the post-Kantian metaphysicians perceived clearly 
that all predication is necessarily limitation, and that to multiply attri- 
butes is merely to represent the infinite under a variety of finite determi- 
nations. The consummation of this point of view was attained in the 
principle of Hegel, that pure being is pure nothing, and that all deter- 
minate being (Daseyn) is necessarily limited. 6 Hence his constant asser- 
tion that God cannot be represented by predicates. 7 Both schools of phi- 
losophy are right in what they deny, and wrong in what they affirm. 
The earlier metaphysicians were right in assuming that thought is only 
possible by means of definite conceptions; but they were wrong in sup- 
posing that any multiplication of such conceptions can amount to a repre- 
sentation of the infinite. The later metaphysicians were right in opposing 
this error; but they fell into the opposite extreme of imagining that by 
the removal of determinations the act of thought and its object could 
become infinite. In truth, a thought about nothing is no thought at all; 
and the rejection of determinations is simply the refusal to think. The 

1 Works, ed. Molesworth, vol. V. p. 342. 

2 Works, vol. IV. p. 425. 

3 Works, ed. Molesworth, vol. IV. p. 299. 

4 In Arist. de Anima, p. 295. 

5 See Wolf, Theologia Naturalis, Pars II. § 6, 14; Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 
p. 450, ed. Rosenkranz. 

6 See Werke, III. p. 73; IV. p. 26, 27; V. p. 70; VI. p. 63. 

7 See Werke, VI. p. 65; XL p. 31, 153; XII p. 229, 418 



LECT. III. NOTES. 275 

conclusion to be drawn from the entire controversy is, that the infinite, as 
such, is not an object of human thought. 

Note IV., p. 71. 

" The adding infinity to any idea or conception necessarily finite, makes 
up no other than a curious contradiction for a divine attribute. . . . You 
make up an attribute of knowledge or wisdom infinitely finite ; which is as 
chimerical and gigantic an idea as an infinite human body." — Bp. Browne, 
Divine Analogy, p. 77. "Discovering conditions of the Unconditioned, 
inventing a possibility for the absolutely Necessary, and the being willing 
to construct it in order to be able to conceive of it, must immediately and 
most obviously appear to be an absurd undertaking." — Jacobi, Ueber die 
Lehre des Spinoza ( Werke, IV. Abth. II. p. 153). " Thou art different from 
the finite, not only in degree, but in kind. They only make Thee by that 
upward gradation a greater man, and ever still only a greater man ; but 
never God, the Infinite, the Immeasurable." — Fichte, Bestimmung des 
Menscken ( WerJce, II. p. 304). 

Note V., p. 71. 

" For, if we should suppose a man to be made with clear eyes, and all 
the rest of his organs of sight well disposed, but endued with no other 
sense; and that he should look only upon one thing, which is always of 
the same color and figure, without the least appearance of variety, he 
would seem to me, whatsoever others might say, to see, no more than I 
seem to myself to feel the bones of my own limbs by my organs of feeling ; 
and yet those bones are always, and on all sides, touched by a most sensi- 
ble membrane. I might perhaps say he were astonished, and looked upon 
it; but I should not say he saw it; it being almost all one for a man to be 
always sensible of one and the same thing, and not to be sensible at all." 
Hobbes, Elem. Phil (Eng. Works), Sect. I. P. IV. c. 25, 5. 



Note VI., p. 71. 

The paradox of Hegel, if applied, where alone we have any data for 
applying it, to the necessary limits of human thought, becomes no para- 
dox at all, but an obvious truth, almost a truism. Our conceptions are 
limited to the finite and the determinate; and a thought which is not of 
any definite object, is but the negation of all thinking. Hegel's error 
consists in mistaking an impotence of thought for a condition of exist- 



276 NOTES. Lect. III. 

ence. That pure being is in itself pure nothing, is more than we can be 
warranted in assuming ; for we have no conception of pure being at all, 
and no means of judging of the possibility of its existence. The ab- 
surdity becomes still more glaring, when this pure nothing is represented 
as containing in itself a process of self-development, — when being and 
non-being, which are absolutely one and the same, are regarded at the 
same time as two opposite elements, which, by their union, constitute 
becoming, and thus give rise to finite existence. But this absurdity is una- 
voidable in a system which starts with the assumption that thought and 
being are identical, and thus abolishes at the outset the possibility of dis- 
tinguishing between the impotence of thought and its activity. 

Note VII., p. 72. 

ttber den Grund unseres Glaubens an eine gottliche Weltregierung ( Werke, 
V. p, 186). In a subsequent work written in defence of this opinion, 
Fichte explains himself as meaning that existence, as a conception of 
sensible origin, cannot be ascribed to God. 1 That the conception of 
existence is, like all other human representations, incompetent to express 
the nature of the Absolute, has been frequently admitted, by philosophers 
and theologians. Thus, Plato describes the supreme good " as not exist- 
ence, but as above existence, and superior to it in dignity and power : " 2 
and his language is borrowed by Justin Martyr and Athanasius, to express 
the absolute nature of God ; 3 Plotinus in like manner says that " the One 
is above being ; " 4 and Schelling, the Plotinus of Germany, asserts that 
the Absolute in its essence is neither ideal nor real, neither thought nor 
being.5 This position is perfectly tenable so long as it is confessed that 
the Absolute is not the object of theological or philosophical speculation, 
and, consequently, that the provinces of thought and existence are not 
coextensive. But without this safeguard, there is no middle course 

1 Appellation an das Publicum gegen die Anklage des Atheismus ( Werke. V. p. 220). 

2 Republic, VI. p. 509. 

3 Justin, Dial c. Tryph. c. 4. " Who is above all existence; unspeakable, ineffa- 
ble, but the only Noble and Good. — Athanasius c. Gentes. c. 2. " Who is supe- 
rior to all existence, and human intelligence, seeing that He is good and surpass- 
ing in moral beauty." Compare Damascenus, De Fide Orthod. I. 4. u He is 
none of the things that are; not so as not to be, but to be above all things that 
are, above being itself." 

4 Enn. V. I. 10. to iircKeiva ovros to %v. Compare Proclus, Inst. Theol. c. 115. 
" It is manifest that every god is above all the things mentioned, existence, and 
life, and mind." 

5 Bruno, p 57. "The Absolute we have now denned as essentially neither ideal 
tor real, neither thinking nor being." 



Lect. in. NOTES. 277 

between an illogical theology and an atheistical logic. The more pious 
minds will take refuge in mysticism, and seek to reach the absolute by a 
superhuman process: the more consistent rcasoners will rush into the 
opposite extreme, and boldly conclude that that which is inconceivable is 
also non-existent. 



Note VIII., p. 72. 

Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Math. VII. 311. "If the subject that knows is 
the whole, then there will be no object that is known; and it belongs to 
the most irrational of things, that there be that which knows, and there 
be not, that which is known." — Plotinus, Enn. V. III. 10. "It must be, 
then, that that which has intelligence, be in duality when it exercises intel- 
ligence, and that either one of the two be outside it, or that both be in it, 
and that intelligence always have to do with alterity (difference)." — Com- 
pare Hegel, Philosojyliie der Religion ( WerJce, XI. p. 167). "In the con- 
sciousness, so far as I have knowledge of an object, I know it as my 
Other (or the Other of me), and hence myself limited by it and finite."— 
Marheinekc, Grundlehren, § 84. " But this comes to pass thus : in the abso- 
lute idea, in which science takes its stand-point, the subject is not different 
from the object, but just as it (i. e. the absolute idea) is the idea of the 
Absolute, as object, so also is the object in it, as the absolute idea, subject, 
and therefore the absolute idea is not different from God Himself." 



Note IX., p. 73. 

In exhibiting the two universal conditions of human consciousness, 
that of difference between objects, and that of relation between object and sub- 
ject, I have considered each with reference to its more immediate and 
obvious application; the former being viewed in connection with the 
Infinite, and the latter with the Absolute. But at the same time it is obvi- 
ous that the two conditions are so intimately connected together, and the 
ideas to which they relate so mutualLy involved in each other, that either 
argument might be employed with equal force in the other direction. 
For difference is a relation, as well as a limit; that which is one out of 
many being related to the objects from which it is distinguished. And 
the subject and object of consciousness, in like manner, are not only 
related to, but distinguished from, each other; and thus each is a limit 
to the other : while, if either of them could be destroyed, a conception of 
the infinite by the finite would be still impossible; for either there would 
be no infinite to be conceived, or there would be no finite to conceive it. 

24 



278 NOTES. Lect. III. 

The three Laws of Thought, commonly acknowledged by logicians, 
those of Identity, Contradiction, and Excluded Middle, are but the above 
two conditions viewed in relation to a given notion. For in the first place, 
every definite notion, as such, is discerned in the two relations of identity 
and difference, as being that which it is, and as distinguished from that 
which it is not. These two relations are expressed by the Laws of Iden- 
tity and Contradiction. And in the second place, a notion is distinguished 
from all that it is not (A from not-A), by means of the mutual relation of 
both objects to a common subject, the universe of whose consciousness is 
constituted by this distinction. This mutual relation is expressed by the 
Law of Excluded Middle. 



Note X., p. 73. 

"Though we cannot fully comprehend the Deity, nor exhaust the 
infiniteness of its perfection, yet may we have an idea or conception of a 
Being absolutely perfect; such a one as is nostro modulo conformis, 
' agreeable and proportionate to our measure and scantling ; ' as we may 
approach near to a mountain, and touch it with our hands, though Ave 
cannot encompass it all round, and enclasp it within our arms." — Cud- 
worth, Intellectual System, ch. 5 (vol. II. p. 518, ed. Harrison). " We grant 
that the mind is limited, but does it thence follow that the object of 
thought must be limited? We think not. We grant that the mind can- 
not embrace the Infinite, but we nevertheless consider that the mind may 
have a notion of the Infinite. No more do we believe that the mind, as 
finite, can only recognize finite objects, than we believe that the eye, be- 
cause limited in its power, can only recognize those objects whose entire 
extension comes within the range of vision. As well tell us that because 
a mountain is too large for the eye of a mole, therefore the mole can 
recognize no mountain : as well tell us that because the world is too large 
for the eye of a man, therefore man can recognize no world, — as tell us 
that because the Infinite cannot be embraced by the finite mind, therefore 
the mind can recognize no Infinite." — Calderwood, Philosophy of the 
Infinite, p. 12. The illustrations employed by both authors are unfor- 
tunate. The part of the mountain touched by the hand of the man, or 
seen by the eye of the mole, is, ex hypothesi, as a part of a larger object, 
imperfect, relative, and finite. And the world, which is confessedly too 
large for the eye of a man, must, in its unseen portion, be apprehended, 
not by sight, but by some other faculty. If, therefore, the Infinite is too 
large for the mind of man, it can only be recognized by some other mind, 
or by some faculty in man which is not mind. But no such faculty is or 



Lect. III. NOTES. 279 

can be assumed. In admitting that we do not recognize the Infinite in its 
entire extension, it is admitted that we do not recognize it as infinite. The 
attempted distinction is sufficiently refuted in the words of Bishop Browne. 
" If it is said that we may then apprehend God directly, though not com- 
prehend him ; that we may have a direct and immediate knowledge partly, 
and in some degree; and though not of his Essence, yet of the Perfections 
flowing from it : I answer, That all the Attributes and Perfections of God 
are in their real Nature as infinite as his very Essence ; so that there can 
be no such thing as having a direct view of him in part; for whatever is 
in God is equally Infinite. If God is to be apprehended at all by any 
direct and immediate idea, he must be apprehended as Infinite; and in that 
very act of the mind, he would be comprehended; and there is no medium 
between apprehending an Infinite Being directly and analogically" 1 



Note XL, p. 76. 

The brevity with which this argument is necessarily expressed in the 
text, may render a few words of explanation desirable. Of course it is 
not meant that no period of time can be conceived, except in a time 
equally long; for this would make a thousand years as inconceivable as 
an eternity. But though there is nothing inconceivable in the notion 
of a thousand years or any other large amount of time, such a notion 
is conceivable only under the form of a portion of time, having other 
time before and after it. An infinite duration, on the other hand, can 
only be conceived as having no time before or after it, and hence as 
having no relation or resemblance to any amount of finite time, however 
great. The mere conception of an indefinite duration, bounding every 
conceivable portion of time, is thus wholly distinct from that of infinite 
duration ; for infinity can neither bound nor be bounded by any duration 
beyond itself. 

This distinction has perhaps not been sufficiently observed by an able 
and excellent writer of the present day, in a work, the principal portions 
of which are worthy of the highest commendation. Dr. McCosh argues in 
behalf of a positive conception of infinity, in opposition to the theory of 
Sir W. Hamilton, in the following manner : " To whatever point we go 
out in imagination, we are sure that we are not at the limits of existence ; 
nay, we believe that, 'to whatever farther point we might go, there would be 
something still farther on." " Such," he continues, " seems to us to be 

1 Divine. Analogy, p. 37. The author is speaking of our knowledge in a future 
state; but his arguments are more properly applicable to our present condition. 



280 NOTES. Lect. III. 

the true psychological nature of the mind's conviction in regard to the 
infinite. It is not a mere impotence to conceive that existence, that time 
or space, should cease, but a positive affirmation that they do not cease." 1 

To this argument it may be objected, in the first place, that this "some- 
thing still farther on " is not itself primarily an object of conception, but 
merely the boundary of conception. It is a condition unavoidable by all 
finite thought, that whatever we conceive must be related to something 
else which we do not conceive. I think of a thousand years as bounded 
by a further duration beyond it. But if, secondarily, we turn our atten-' 
tion to this boundary itself, it is not then actually conceived as either 
limited or unlimited on its remoter side; we do not positively think of it 
as having no boundary; we only refrain from thinking of it as having a 
boundary. It is thus presented to us as indefinite, but not as infinite. And 
the result will be the same, if to our conception of a thousand years we 
add cycle upon cycle, till we are wearied with the effort. An idea which 
we tend towards, but never reach, is indefinite, but not infinite; for, at 
whatever point we rest, there are conditions beyond, which remain unex- 
hausted. 

In the second place, even if we could positively perceive this further 
duration as going on forever, we should still be far removed from the con- 
ception of infinity. For such a duration is given to us as bounding and 
bounded by our original conception of a thousand years; it is limited at 
its nearer extremity, though unlimited at the other. If this be regarded 
as infinite, we are reduced to the self-contradictory notion of infinity 
related to a time beyond itself. Is a thousand years, phis its infinite 
boundary, greater than that boundary alone, or not? If it is, we have the 
absurdity of a greater than the infinite. If it is not, the original concep- 
tion of a thousand years, from relation to which that of infinity is sup- 
posed to arise, is itself reduced to a nonentity, and cannot be related to 
anything. This contradiction may be avoided, if we admit that our con- 
ception of time, as bounded, implies an apprehension of the indefinite, but 
not of the infinite. 

But possibly, after all, the difference between Dr. McCosh's view and 
that of Sir W. Hamilton, may be rather verbal than real. For the sub- 
sequent remarks of the former are such as might be fully accepted by 
the most uncompromising adherent of the latter. "The mind seeks in 
vain to embrace the infinite in a positive image, but is constrained to 
believe, when its efforts fail, that there is a something to which no limits 
can be put." All that need practically be contended for by the supporters 

1 Method of the Divine Government, p. 534, 4th edition. 



Lect. ni. NOTES. 281 

of the negative theory is, first, that this inability to assign limits indicates 
directly only an indefiniteness in our manner of thinking, but not necessa- 
rily an infinity in the object about which we think; and, secondly, that 
our indirect belief in the infinite, whether referred to an impotence or to a 
power of mind, is not of such a character that we can deduce from it any 
logical consequences available in philosophy or in theology. The sober 
and reverent tone of religious thought which characterizes Dr. McCosh's 
writings, warrants the belief that he would not himself repudiate these 
• conclusions. 

Note XII., p. 76. 

For the antagonist theories of a beginning of time itself, and of an eter- 
nal succession in them, see Plato, Timceus, p. 37, 38, and Aristotle, Phys. 
YIII. 1. The two theories are ably contrasted in Prof. Butler's Lectures on 
the History of Ancient Philosophy, vol. II. p. 18-3 sqq. Plato does not appear 
to regard the beginning of time as the beginning of material existence, 
but only of the sensible phenomena of matter. The insensible substratum 
of the phenomena seems to have been regarded by him as coeternal with 
the Deity. 1 It has been conjectured, indeed, that to this matter was 
attributed a perpetual existence in successive duration, as distinguished 
from the existence of the Deity, in a manner devoid of all succession. 2 
This hypothesis perhaps relieves the theory from the apparent paradox of 
an existence before time (before being itself a temporal relation), but it 
cannot be easily reconciled with the language of Plato; and moreover, it 
only avoids one paradox by the introduction of another, — that of a state 
of existence out of time contempt aneous with one in time. 

Note XIII., p. 76. 

In Joann. Evang. Tract. XXXVIII. 10. " Discuss the changes of things, 
and you will find a past and a future; think of God, and you will find a 
present, in which neither past nor future is possible."— Compare Confess. 
XI. c. ii.; Enair. in Ps. II. 7; De Civ. Dei, XI. 21. See also Cudworth, 
vol. H. p. 529, ed. Harrison; Herder, Gott, Werke, YIII. p. 139. 

1 See Timceus, p. 49—53. Plato's opinion however has been variously repre- 
sented. For some account of the controversies on this point, see Mosheim's 
Dissertation, De Creatione ex Nihilo, translated in Harrison's edition of Cudworth, 
vol. HI p. 140; Brucker, Historia Philosophic, vol. p. 676. Compare also Profes- 
sor Thompson's note, in Butler's Lectures on the History of Ancient Philosophy, vol. 
II. p. 189. 

2 See Mosheim's note in Harrison's Cudworth, vol. II. p. 551. 

24* 



282 NOTES. Lect. III. 



Note XIV., p. 76. 

De Consol. Philos. L. V. Pr. 6. " Eternity, therefore, is at once the entire 
and the perfect possession of interminable life." 



Note XV., p. 76. 

Summa, P. I. Qu. X. Art. 1. "In this way, therefore, eternity is made 
known by two things. First, by this, that what is in eternity is intermi- 
nable, i. e., without beginning and without end. Second by this, that 
eternity is without succession, existing at once in totality." — Compare 

Plotinus, Enn. III. 1. viii. c. 2 " Always having the whole present, 

but not this thing now, and then another, but all at once." — Proclus Inst., 
Theol. c. 52. "All which is eternal exists at once in totality." Several 
historical notices relating to this theory are given by Petavius, Thedlogica 
Dogmata, De Deo, 1. III. c. 4. 

Note XVI., p. 77. 

. . . . " Nor can eternity be denned by time, or have any relation to 
time." — Spinoza, Eihica, P. V. Prop. 23. " Eternity, in the pure sense of 
the word, can be explained by no duration of time, even supposing we 
take this as endless {indefinite). Duration is an undetermined continua- 
tion of existence, which in every moment bears with it a measure of 
transientness, of the future as of the past." — Herder, Gott ( Werke, VIII. 
p. 140). "In so far as the I is eternal, it has no duration at all. For 
duration is thinkable only in relation to objects. We speak of an eternity 
[sempiternity] of duration (seviternitas) i. e. of an existence in all time, 
but eternity in the pure sense of the word (seternitas) is Being in no time." 
Schelling, Vom Jch, § 15. Cognate to, or rather identical with, these 
speculations, is the theory advocated by Mr. Maurice ( Theological jEssaj/s, 
p. 422 sqq.), "that eternity is not a lengthening out or continuation of 
time ; that they are generically different." 



Note XVII., p. 77. 

In the acute and decisive criticism of Schelling by Sir W. Hamilton, 
this objection is urged with great effect. " We cannot, at the same 
moment, be in the intellectual intuition and in common consciousness ; 
we must therefore be able to connect them by an act of memory — of 



Lect. III. NOTES. 283 

recollection. But how can there be a remembrance of the Absolute and its 
Intuition? As out of time, and space, and relation, and difference, it is 
admitted that the Absolute cannot be construed to the understanding. But 
as remembrance is only possible under the conditions of the understand- 
ing, it is consequently impossible to remember anything anterior to the 
moment when we awaken into consciousness ; and the clairvoyance of the 
Absolute, even granting its reality, is thus, after the crisis, as if it had 
never been." — Discussions, p. 23. 

Note XVIII., p. 77. 

See Augustine, In Joann. Evang. Tract. XXXVIII. 10. " Think of God, 
you will find a present (an Is) in which the past and future cannot be. In 
order, therefore, that you also may be, transcend time. But who shall 
transcend time by his own powers ? He will raise you to it, who said to 
the Father, "I will that they also be with me where I am" This precept has 
found great favor with mystical theologians. Thus Eckart, in a sermon 
published among those of Tauler, says, " Nothing hinders the soul so 
much in its knowledge of God as time and place. Time and place are 
parts, and God is one; therefore, if our soul is to know God, it must know 
him above time and place." x And the author of the Theologia Germanica, 
c. 7 : " If the soul shall see with the right eye into eternity, then the left 
eye must close itself and refrain from working, and be as though it were 
dead. For if the left eye be fulfilling its office towards outward things ; 
that is, holding converse with time and its creatures ; then must the right 
eye be hindered in its working; that is, in its contemplation." 2 So too 
Swedenborg, in his Angelic Wisdom concerning Divine Providence, § 48: 
" What is infinite in itself and eternal in itself is divine, can be seen, and 
yet cannot be seen by men : it can be seen by those who think of infinite 
not from space, and of eternal not from time; but cannot be seen by those 
who think of infinite and eternal from space and time." 3 In the same 
spirit sings Angelus Silesius : 

" Mensch, wo du deinen Geist schwingst uber Ort und Zeit, 
So kannst du jeden Blick sein in der Ewigkeit." 4 

The modern German mysticism is in this respect nowise behind the 
earlier. Schelling says of his intuition of the Absolute, " The pure self- 

1 Life and Sermons of Dr. John Tauter, translated by Susanna Winkworth, p. 190. 

2 Theologia Germanica, translated by Susanna Winkworth, p. 20. 

3 English translation, p. 27. 

4 Cherubinischer Wandersmann, 1. 12. Quoted by Strauss, Glaubenslehre, II. p. 738. 



284 NOTES. Lect. III. 

consciousness is an act which lies beyond all time, and posits all time." l 
And again, " But since in the Absolute thinking is entirely one with the 
intuition, so will all things not merely as endless, by their conceptions, 
but eternal by their ideas, and without any relation, even of opposition, to 
time, and with absolute unity of potentiality and actuality, be expressed 
in it, as the highest unity of thought and intuition. " 2 Schleiermacher 
(Christliche Glaube, § 52) endeavors to find something analogous to the 
Divine Eternity, in the timeless existence of the personal self, as the per- 
manent subject of successive modes of consciousness. The analogy, how- 
ever, fails in two respects ; first, because the permanent self cannot be 
contemplated apart from its successive modes, but is discerned only in 
relation to them; and, secondly, because, though not itself subject to the 
condition of succession, it is still in time under that of duration. Kant 
truly remarks on all such mystical efforts to transcend time : " All solely 
on this account, that men may at last rejoice over an eternal rest, which 
makes out their imagined happy end of all things ; properly an idea, along 
with which their understanding is gone, and all thinking itself comes to 
an end." 3 

Note XIX., p. 77. 

This is directly admitted by Fichte, who says, in his earliest work, 
" How the infinite Mind may contemplate its existence and its attributes, 
we cannot know, without being the infinite Mind ourselves." 4 But of the 
two alternatives which this important admission offers, Fichte himself, in 
his subsequent writings, as well as his successors in philosophy, chose the 
wrong one. See above, Lecture I. note 29. 

Note XX., p. 78. 

" Look into the dictionaries for the usage of the words Person, person- 
ality, etc., .... all say, that these words designate something peculiar or 
special under a certain appearance ; a subordinate idea, which does not be- 
long to the Infinite." .... Herder, Gott ( WerJce, VIII. p. 199). "What 
then do you call personality and consciousness ? that certainly which you 
have found in yourselves, which you have become acquainted with in 
yourselves, and have designated with this name. But the least attention 

1 System des Transcendentalen Idealismus, p. 59 ( Werke, III. p. 375). 

2 Bruno, p. 58. 

3 Das Ende aller Dinge {Werke, VII. p. 422). 

4 Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung ( Werke, V. p. 42). 



Lect. III. NOTES. 285 

to your construction of this notion can teach you, that you absolutely do 
not and cannot have this thought without limitation and finitencss." 
Fichte, Veber goltliche Weltregierung ( WerJce, V. p. 187). Schleierukcher, 
in like manner, in his second Discourse on Religion, offers a half apology 
for Pantheism, on the ground of the limitation implied in the notions of 
personality and consciousness. 1 And Strauss remarks : " As persons, we 
know ourselves only in distinction from other persons of the same kind, 
from whom we distinguish ourselves, and of course, too, as finite; it ap- 
pears, consequently, that the notion of personality loses all significance 
beyond this province of the finite, and that a being, who has no other be- 
sides himself of his own kind, cannot be a person at all." — Christliche 
Glaubenshhre, I. p. 504.. 

Note XXI., p. 79. 

Be Trinitate, XY. c. 5. " Therefore if we say, eternal, immortal, incor- 
ruptible, wise, powerful, just, good, happy, spirit; of all these, the last 
only seems to be significant of substance, but the others qualities of this 
substance ; but not so is it in that ineffable and simple nature. For what 
there seems to be said of qualities must be understood of substance or 
essence. For God is far from being called Spirit as to substance, and good 
as to quality; but both of these as to substance .... although in God 
justice is one with goodness, with happiness, and the being Spirit is one 
with being just and good and happy." — Ibid. VI. c. 4. Compare Aquinas, 
Summa, P. I. Qu. XL. Art. i : . . . . " Because the divine simplicity ex- 
cludes the composition of form and matter, it follows, that in divine 
things, the abstract and the concrete is one with the Deity and God. And 
because the divine simplicity excludes the composition of subject and 
accident, it follows that the attributes of God are one with his essential 
being; and therefore wisdom and virtue are identical in God, because 
both are in the divine essence." See also above, Lecture II. note 27. 



Note XXII., p. 79. 

Plotinus, Enn. VII. 1. ix. c. 6. " Whatever may be said to be wanting, 
is wanting in "the Well" (i. e., in perfectness of condition); .... 
so that goodness, so that will, is not predicable of the One; for the One 
transcends goodness ; . . . . nor intelligence . . nor motion, for it is prior 
to intelligence, to motion." .... Spinoza, Etli. P. I. Prop. 17. Schol. "If 
intelligence belongs to the divine nature, it cannot be, as our intelligence, 

1 Werke, I. pp. 269, 280. 



286 NOTES. Lect. in. 

posterior to or coexistent with the objects of intelligence, since God is 
in causality prior to all things ; but on the contrary reality and the formal 
essence of things is on that account such, because as such it exists objec- 
tively in the Divine Mind Since, therefore, the Divine Intelligence is 

the one and the only cause of things, indeed (as we have shown) as much 
of their essence as of their existence, He Himself ought necessarily to differ 

from them as much in respect to essence as to existence And yet 

the Intelligence of God is the cause both of the essence and of the exist- 
ence of our intelligence; therefore the Intelligence of God, so far as it is 
conceived to constitute the divine essence, differs from our intelligence, in 
respect alike to essence and to existence." .... Compare P. I. Prop. 32. 
Cor. 1, 2, and P. II. Prop. n. Cor., where Spinoza maintains that God is 
not conscious in so far as he is infinite, but becomes conscious in man; — 
a conclusion identical with that of the extreme Hegelian school, and, in- 
deed, substantially the same with that of Hegel himself. See above, Lec- 
ture I, notes 29, 32. 

Note XXIII., p. 80. 

Anselm, Monolog. c. 66. " Without doubt, in all investigations into the 
essential being of the Creator, the deeper knowledge is reached, the greater 
the likeness to Him of the created thing, by which the investigation is 

made Manifestly, therefore, as the rational mind alone among all 

created things can rise to the investigation of this essential being, this alone 
can avail to the discovery of it." Compare Aquinas, Summa, P. I. Qu. 
XXIX. Art. 3. " Person signifies that which is most perfect in all nature, 
or a subsistence in a rational nature. Hence, since all which belongs to 
perfection, must be attributed to God because his essence contains in itself 
all perfection, — it is fitting that this name person, be used of God, yet not 
in the same way in which it is used of creatures, but in a more excellent 
way; just as other names are ascribed to God, which are put by us upon 
created beings." And Jacobi, at the conclusion of an eloquent denuncia- 
tion of the Pantheism of his own day, truly observes, " A being without 
self-being is entirely and universally impossible. But a self-being without 
consciousness, and again a consciousness without self-consciousness, with- 
out substantiality and at least an implied personality, is just as impossi- 
ble; the one as well as the other is but empty words. And so God is not 
in being, He is, in the highest sense, the Not-being, if He is not a Spirits 
and He is not a Spirit, if he is wanting in the fundamental quality of 
Spirit, self-consciousness, substantiality and personality."! In the same 

1 Veber eine Weissagung Lichtenberg's ( Werke, III. p. 240). Compare also the Pref- 
ace to Vol. IV. p. xlv. 



Lect. III. NOTES. 287 

spirit, and with a just recognition of the limits of human thought, M. 
Bartholmess says, " He who refuses to take some traits of resemblance 
from the moral part of the world will be forced to take them from the 
physical part, the mathematical, the logical; he will make God after the 
image of the material world, — after the image of a geometrical magnitude 
or arithmetical, — after the image of a logical abstraction. Always, in lift- 
ing himself to the Creator, he will rest upon some part or other of the crea- 
tion." 1 To the same effect, a distinguished living writer of our own 
country observes, " The worshipper carried through the long avenues of 
columns and statues, and the splendid halls of the ancient temple of 
Egyptian Thebes, was not conducted at last to a more miserable termina- 
tion, when in the inner shrine he found one of the lower animals, than the 
follower of a modern philosopher, when conducted through processes, 
laws, and developments, to a divinity who has less of separate sensation, 
consciousness, and life, than the very brutes which Egypt declared to be 
its gods." 2 

Note XXIV., p. 80. 

Pens&s, P. I. Art. IV. § 6. In like manner, in another passage, Pascal 
says, "All bodies, the firmament, the stars, the earth, kingdoms, — are 
not equal to the most insignificant spirit; for such a spirit knows all these, 
and itself; but the body, nothing." 3 

The following spirited translation of Jacobi 4 is from the pen of Sir W. 
Hamilton, and occurs in the second of his Lectures on Metaphysics, just 
published. The entire Lecture from which it is taken constitutes a forci- 
ble and admirably illustrated argument to the same effect. "Nature con- 
ceals God : for through her whole domain Nature reveals only fate, only 
an indissoluble chain of mere efficient causes without beginning and with- 
out end, excluding, with equal necessity, both providence and chance. 
An independent agency, a free original commencement, within her sphere 
and proceeding from her powers, is absolutely impossible. Working 
without will, she takes counsel neither of the good nor of the beautiful ; 
creating nothing, she casts off from her dark abyss only eternal trans- 
formations of herself, unconsciously and without an end; furthering with 
the same ceaseless industry decline and increase, death and life, — never 
producing what alone is of God and what supposes liberty, — the virtuous, 
the immortal. Man reveals God: for Man by his intelligence rises above 
nature, and in virtue of this intelligence is conscious of himself, as a 

1 Histohe des doctrines religieuses de la Pliilosophie Moderne, Introduction, p. xli. 

2 McCosh, Method of the Divine Government p. 461 (4th edition). 

3 Pensees P. II. Art X. § 1. 

4 Von den gottlichen Dmgen ( Werke, III. p. 425). 



288 NOTES. Lect. III. 

power not only independent of, but opposed to, nature, and capable of re- 
sisting, conquering, and controlling her. As man has a living faith in this 
power, superior to nature, which dwells in him, so has he a belief in God; 
a feeling, an experience of his existence. As he does not believe in this 
power, so does he not believe in God : he sees, he experiences naught in 
existence but nature, — necessity, — fate." — Hamilton's Lectures on Meta- 
physics, Am, Edition, p. 29. 

Note XXV., p. 81. 

Descartes, Discours de la Methode, P. IV., Principia, P. I. § 7. That the 
Cartesian cogito, ergo sum, is not intended as a syllogism, in which thought 
and existence are two distinct attributes, but as a statement of the fact, 
that personal existence consists in consciousness, has been sufficiently 
shown by M. Cousin, in his Essay " Sur le vrai sens du cogito, ergo sum." 
The same view has been well stated by Mr. Veitch, in the introduction to 
his translation of the Discours de la Methode, p. xxii. M. Bartholmess 
(Histoire des doctrines religieuses, I. p. 23) happily renders ergo by c'est-a- 
dire. It must be remembered, however, that the cogito of Descartes is not 
designed to express the phenomena of reflection alone, but is coextensive 
with the entire consciousness. This is expressly affirmed in the Principia, 
P. I. § 9. "By the word cogitatio I understand all the objects of our con- 
sciousness. And so not only to understand, to will, to imagine, but also to 
perceive, — all are meant by cogitare." The dictum, thus extended, may 
perhaps be advantageously modified by disengaging the essential from the 
accidental features of consciousness ; but its main principle remains un- 
shaken ; namely, that our conception of real existence, as distinguished 
from appearance, is derived from, and depends upon, the distinction be- 
tween the one conscious subject and the several objects of which he is 
conscious. The rejection of consciousness, as the primary constituent of 
substantive existence, constitutes Spinoza's point of departure from the 
principles of Descartes, and, at the same time, the fundamental error of 
his system. Spinoza in fact transfers the notion of substance, which is 
originally derived from the consciousness of personality, and has no posi- 
tive significance out of that consciousness, to the absolute, which exists 
and is conceived by itself, — an object to whose existence consciousness 
bears no direct testimony, and whose conception involves a self-contra- 
diction. 

Note XXVI., p. 81. 

" I am, that I am. This decisive utterance establishes all. Its echo in 
the human soul is the revelation of God in it. What makes man man, i.e., 



Lect. III. NOTES. ' 289 

makes him the image of God, is called Reason. This begins with the — I 

am Reason without personality is non-entity, the like non-entity 

with that original cause, — which is All and not One, or One and None, 
the perfection of the imperfect, the absolutely Undetermined — called 
God by those who will have no knowledge of the true God, but yet shrink 
from denying Him — with the lips." — Jacobi, Von den gottlichen Dingen 
( Werke, III. p. 418). 

Note XXVII., p. 82. 

For notices of Schelling's philosophy in this respect, see Bartholmess 
Histoire des doctrines religieuses, II. p. 116, and Willm, Histoire de la Philoso- 
phie Allemande, III. p. 318. " The school of Schelling," says M me de Stael, 
" supposes that the individual perishes in us, but that the inward qualities, 
Which we possess, reenter into the grand whole of the eternal creation. 
This immortality has a terrible resemblance to death." 1 Schelling's views 
on this point are more completely developed by his disciple Blasche, in his 
Philosophische Unsterblichkeitlehre, especially §§ 18, 55, 56, 72. The tendency 
of Hegel's teaching is in the same direction; the individual being with him 
only an imperfect and insignificant phase of the universal : 2 and a personal 
immortality, though not openly denied, seems excluded by inference; an 
inference which his successors have not hesitated to make. 3 Schleier- 
macher concludes his Second Discourse on Religion with these remarkable 
words : " The final aim of a religious life is not the immortality, which 

1 De V Allemagne, Partie III. ch. 7. 

2 Phdnomenologie des Geiste<\ Vorrede ( Werke, II. p. 22). 

3 See Michelet, Geschichte der letzten Systeme der Philosophie, II. p. 638. Strauss, 
in his Christliche Glaubenslehre, § 106 — 110, gives an instructive account of some of 
the speculations of recent German writers on this question ; his own commentary 
being not the least significant portion. " Thereby indeed," he says " the Ego makes 
known its will to carry on to all eternity (i. e. not to take a step out from its own 
finiteness) not only its subjectivity in general, but the particular relations of this 
subjectivity." And again : " Only the nature of the species is infinite and inex- 
haustible; that of the individual can be only finite." His inquiry concludes with 
the well-known words, "The other world is, in all forms, the one foe, but in its 
form as the world to come, the last foe, which speculative criticism has to com- 
bat and if possible to overcome." And Feuerbach, another " advanced " disciple 
of the Hegelian school, has written an essay on Death and Immortality, for the 
purpose of showing that a belief in personal annihilation is indispensable to 
sound morality and true religion; that the opposite belief is connected with all 
that is " satanic" and "bestial ;" and that temporal death is but an image of God, 
the " great objective negation :" and has indicated significantly, in another work, 
the philosophical basis of his theory, by an aphorism the direct contradictory to 
that of Descartes, " Cogitans nemo sum. Cogito, ergo omnes sum homines." 

25 



290 NOTES. Lect. III. 

many wish for and believe in, or only pretend to believe in ... . not that 
beyond time or rather after this time, but yet in time, but the immortality, 
which we can have immediate in this temporal life, — and which is a 
problem in the solution of which we are ever employed. In the midst of 
the finite to be one with the infinite, and be eternal in every instant, — that 
is the immortality of religion." And later, in his Christliche Glaube, § 158, 
while admitting that the belief in a personal immortality follows naturally 
from the doctrine of the twofold nature of Christ, he notwithstanding 
thinks it necessary to apologize for those who reject this belief on panthe- 
istic principles : " For from this point of view, it may be alike maintained, 
on the one hand, that the consciousness of God makes up the essential 
nature of every life which in the higher sense is self-conscious or rational, 
on the other hand, however, that, while the Spirit in this productivity is 
essentially immortal, yet the individual soul is only a transient action of 

this productivity, and so is also essentially perishable With such a 

renunciation of the continuation of personality, would a supremacy of the 
consciousness of God perfectly agree." Mr. Atkinson, from the side of 
materialism, arrives at a similar conclusion : " What more noble and glo- 
rious than a calm and joyful indifference about self and the future, in 
merging the individual in the general good, — the general good in universal 
nature." 1 And M. Comte comes forward with his substitute of "subjec- 
tive immortality," i. e., being remembered by other people, as a far nobler 
and truer conception of a future life than that held by theologians. 2 But 
the most systematic and thoroughgoing exponent of this philosophy is 
Schopenhauer. With him, the species is the exhibition in time of the idea 
or real being, of which the individual is but the finite and transient expres- 
sion. 3 In the same sense in which the individual was generated from 
nothing, he returns to nothing by death. 4 To desire a personal immor- 
tality is to desire to perpetuate an error to infinity; for individual existence 
is the error from which it should be the aim of life to extricate ourselves. 5 
Judaism, which teaches a creation out of nothing, consistently asserts that 
death is annihilation ; while Christianity has borrowed its belief in immor- 
tality from India, and inconsistently engrafted it on a Jewish stem. 6 The 
true doctrine however is not to be found in these, but in the Indian Vedas, 
whose superior wisdom can only be ascribed to the fact, that their authors, 



1 Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and Development, p. 189. 

2 Cattchisme Positiviste, p. 169. 

3 Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, II. p. 434, 487, 611. 

4 Ibid., p. 482, 498. 

5 Ibid., p. 494. 

6 Ibid., p. 489, 617. 



Lect. III. NOTES. 291 

living nearer, in point of time, to the origin of the human race, compre- 
hended more clearly and profoundly the true nature of things. 1 As a relief 
from this desolating pantheism, it is refreshing to turn to the opposite 
language of Neander. "Man could not become conscious of God as his 
God, if he were not a personal spirit, divinely allied, and destined for 
eternity, an eternal object (as an individual) of God ; and thereby far above 
all natural and perishable beings, whose perpetuity is that of the species, 
not the individual.2 



Note XXVIII., p. 82. 

We have great reason to find fault with the strange manner of some 
men, who are ever vexing themselves with the discussion of ill-conceived 
matters. They seek for that which they know, and know not that for 
which they seek." — Leibnitz, Nouveaux Essais, L. II. Ch. 21. § 14. 



Note XXIX., p. 82. 

See the acute criticism of the Kantian distinction between tilings and 
phenomena, by M. Willm, in his Histoire de la Philosophie Allemande, Yol. I. 
p. 177. " It is not necessary to admit, that what interposes between the 
objects and the reason alters and falsifies, so to say, the view of the 
objects; and it may be that the laws of the mind are at the same time the 
laws of things as they are. Hegel has justly said, that it were quite pos- 
sible, that after having penetrated behind the scene, which is open before 
us, we should find nothing there; we may add, that it is possible, that 
this veil — which seems to cover the picture, and which we are striving 
to lift — may be the picture itself." Kant unquestionably went too far, 
in asserting that things in themselves are not as they appear to our facul- 
ties : the utmost that his premises could warrant him in asserting is, that 
we cannot tell whether they are so or not. And even this degree of skep- 
ticism, though tenable as far as external objects are concerned, cannot 
legitimately be extended to the personal self. I exist as I am conscious 
of existing; and this conscious self is itself the Ding an sich, the standard 
by which all representations of personality must be judged, and from 
which our notion of reality, as distinguished from appearance, is originally 
derived. To this extent Jacobi's criticism of Kant is just and decisive. 
" All our philosophizing is a struggle to get behind the form of the thing; 
, i. e., to get to the thing itself; but how is this possible, since then we 

1 Ibid., p. 487. 2 Life of Jesus Christ, p. 399. (Bonn's edition.) 



292 NOTES. Lect. III. 

must get behind ourselves, behind all nature, — things, behind their 
origin?" 1 

Note XXX., p. 84. 

The Intellectual Intuition of Schelling has been noticed above. See 
notes 16, 17, 18, pp. 77 sqq. The method of Hegel, in its aim identical 
with that of Schelling, differs from it chiefly in making thought, instead 
of intuition, the instrument of reaching the Absolute. As Schelling 
assumes the possibility of an intuition superior to time and difference, so 
Hegel postulates the existence of a logical process emancipated from the 
laws of identity and contradiction. The Understanding and the Reason 
are placed in sharp antagonism to each other. The one is a faculty of 
finite thinking, subject to the ordinary laws of thought : the other is a 
faculty of infinite thinking, to which those laws are inapplicable. Hence 
the principles of Identity, of Contradiction, and of Excluded Middle are 
declared to be valid merely for the abstract understanding, from which 
reason is distinguished by the principle of the Identity of Contradictories. 2 
But this assertion, indispensable as it is to Hegel's system, involves more 
consequences than the author himself would be willing to admit. The 
important admission, that an infinite object of thought can only be 
apprehended by an infinite act of thinking, involves the conclusion, that 
the understanding and the reason have no common ground on which 
either can make itself intelligible to the other; for the very principles 
which to the one are a criterion of truth, are to the other an evidence 
of falsehood. Moreover, the philosophy which regards the union of con- 
tradictories as essential to the conceptions of the reason, is bound in con- 
sistency to extend the same condition to its judgments and deductions; 
for whatever is one-sided and partial in the analysis of a notion, must be 
equally so in those more complex forms of thought into which notions 
enter. The logic of the understanding must be banished entirely, or not 
at all. Hence the philosopher may neither defend his own system, nor 
refute his adversary, by arguments reducible to the ordinary logical forms ; 
for these forms rest on the very laws of thought which the higher philos- 
ophy is supposed to repudiate. Hegel's own polemic is thus self-con- 

1 Ueber das Unternehmen des Kriticismus, ( Werlce III. p. 176). 

2 See Logik, B. II. c. 2; Encyklopadie, § 28, 115, 119, Geschichle der Philosophies 
Werke, XV. p. 598. See also his attempt to rescue speculative philosophy from 
the assaults of skepticism, Werke, XIV. p. 511, 512. He charges the skeptic with 
first making reason finite, in order to overthrow it by the principles of finite * 
thought. The defence amounts to no more than this : " The laws of .thought are 
against me; but I refuse to be bound by their authority." 



Lect. III. NOTES. 293 

demned; and his attempted refutation of the older metaphysicians, is a 
virtual acknowledgment of the validity of their fundamental principles. 
If the so-called infinite thinking is a process of thought at all, it must he 
a process entirely sui generis, isolated and unapproachable, as incapable as 
the intuition of Schelling of being expressed in ordinary language, or 
compared, even in antagonism, with the processes of ordinary reason- 
ing. The very attempt to expound it thus, necessarily postulates its own 
failure. 

But this great thinker has rendered one invaluable service to philos- 
ophy. He has shown clearly what are the only conditions under which a 
philosophy of the Absolute could be realized; and his attempt has done 
much to facilitate the conclusion, to which philosophy must finally come, 
that the Absolute is beyond the reach of human thought. If such a phi- 
losophy were possible at all, it would be in the form of the philosophy of 
Hegel. And Hegel's failure points to one inevitable moral. All the above 
inconsistency and division of the human mind against itself, might be 
avoided by acknowledging the supreme authority of the laws of thought 
over all human speculation ; and by recognizing the consequent distinc- 
tion between positive and negative thinking, — between the lawful exer- 
cise of the reason within its own province, and its abortive efforts to pass 
beyond it. But such an acknowledgment amounts to a confession that 
thought and being are not identical, and that reason itself requires us to 
believe in truths that are beyond reason. And to this conclusion specu- 
lative philosophy itself leads us, if in no other way, at least by the whole- 
some warning of its own pretensions and failures. 

Note XXXI., p. 84. 

Tertullian, T>e Carne Chn'sti, c. 5. " The Son of God was born ; that 
awakens no shame, precisely because it is shameful ; and the Son of God 
died; it is thoroughly credible, because it is absurd; He was buried and 
then rose again; it is certain, because it is impossible." 

Note XXXn., p. 86. 
See above, Lecture II., note 37. 

Note XXXIII., p. 89. 

Hooker, -E. P. B. I. ch. ii. § 2. Compare the words of Jacobi, An 
Ficlxte (Werke, III., p. 7). "A God, who could be known, were no God 
at all." 

25* 



294 NOTES. Lect. IV. 



LECTURE IV. 

Note I., p. 90. 

Thus Wegscheider, after expressly admitting (Instit. Theol. § 52) that 
the infinite cannot be comprehended by the finite, and that its idea can 
only be represented by analogy and symbol, proceeds to assert, with 
the utmost confidence, that the attributes of omnipotence and omniscience 
do not truly represent the internal nature of God (§ 69); that a plurality 
of persons in the Godhead is manifestly repugnant to reason, and that the 
infinite God cannot assume the nature of finite man (§ 92); that the fall 
of man is inconsistent with the divine attributes (§ 117); that repentance 
is the only mode of expiating sin reconcilable with the moral nature of 
God (§ 138); that the doctrine of Christ's intercession is repugnant to the 
divine nature (§ 143). 

By a somewhat similar inconsistency, Mr. Newman, while fully acknowl- 
edging that we cannot have any perfect knowledge of an infinite mind, 
and that infinity itself is but a negative idea, yet thinks it necessary to 
regard the soul as a separate organ of specific information, by which we 
are in contact with the infinite ; and dogmatizes concerning the similarity 
of divine and human attributes, in a manner which nothing short of abso- 
lute knowledge can justify. (See The Soul, pp. 1, 3, 34, 54, 58.) He com- 
pares the infinite to the " illimitable haziness " which bounds the sphere 
of distinct vision. The analogy would be serviceable to his argument, if 
we possessed two sets of e}^es, one for clearness and one for haziness ; one 
to be limited, and the other to discern the limitation. The hypothesis of 
a separate faculty of consciousness, whether called soul, reason, or intel- 
lectual intuition, to take cognizance of the infinite, is only needed for 
those philosophers who undertake to develop a complete philosophy of 
the infinite as such. But the success of the various attempts in this prov- 
ince has not been such as to give any trustworthy evidence of the exist- 
ence of such a faculty. 

Note II., p. 91. 
See above, Lecture I., note 3. 

Note III., p. 91. 

See Mr. Rose's remarks on the reaction against the Wolfian demonstra- 
tive method. State of Protestantism in Germany, p. 206 (second edition). 



LECT. IV. NOTES. 295 



Note IV., p. 92. 

See Kant, Kritik der reinen Vermwft, p. 497. ed. Rosenkranz. This 
admission, rightly understood, need not be considered as detracting from 
the value of the speculative arguments as auxiliaries. All that is con- 
tended for is, that the foundation must he laid elsewhere, before their 
assistance, valuable as it is, can be made available. Thus understood, 
this view coincides with that expressed by Sir W. Hamilton, in the 
second of the Lectures on Metaphysics, shortly to be published, " that 
the phenomena of matter, taken by themselves (you will observe the 
qualification, taken by themselves), so far from warranting any infer- 
ence to the existence of a God, would, on the contrary, ground even an 
argument to his negation, — that the study of the external world, taken 
with and in subordination to that of the internal, not only loses its 
atheistic tendency, but, under such subservience, may be rendered con- 
ducive to the great conclusion, from which, if left to itself, it would 
dissuade us." The atheistic tendency is perhaps too strongly stated; 
as the same phenomena may be surveyed, by different individuals, in 
different spirits and with different results ; but the main position, that 
the belief in God is primarily based on mental, and not on material 
phenomena, accords with the view taken in the text. 



Note V., p. 92. 

Kant, Kritik der r. V., p. 488. Compare Hume, Dialogues concerning 
Natural Religion, Part V. Kant's argument is approved by Hegel, 
Philosophic der Religion ( Werke, XII. p. 37). The objection which it 
urges is of no value, unless we admit that man possesses an adequate 
notion of the infinite, as such. Otherwise the notion of power indefinitely 
great, which the phenomena certainly suggest, is, both theoretically 
and practically, undistinguishable from the infinite itself. This has 
been well remarked by a recent writer. See Selections from the Corre- 
spondence of JR. E. H. Greyson, Am. Ed., p. 550. 



Note VI., p. 92. 

Jowett, Epistles of St. Paul, Vol. II. p. 406. Professor Jowett considers 
the comparison between the works of nature and those of art as not 
merely inadequate, but positively erroneous. He says, "As certainly 
as the man who found a watch or piece of mechanism on the sea- 
shore would conclude, 'here are marks of design, indications of an 



296 NOTES. Lect. IV. 

intelligent artist/ so certainly, if he came across the meanest or the 
highest of the works of nature, would he infer, * this was not made by 
man, nor by any human art and skill/ He sees at first sight that the sea- 
weed beneath his feet is something different in kind from the productions 
of man." l But surely the force of the teleological argument does not 
turn upon the similarity of the objects, but upon their analogy. The 
point of comparison is, that in the works of nature, as well as in those 
of art, there is an adaptation of means to ends, which indicates an 
intelligent author. And such an adaptation may exist in an organized 
body, no less than in a machine, notwithstanding numerous differences 
in the details of their structure. The evidence of this general analogy 
is in nowise weakened by Professor Jowett's special exceptions. 

Note VII., p. 92. 

"When the spiritual man (as such) cannot judge, the question is 
removed into a totally different court from that of the Soul, the court 
of the critical understanding. . .The processes of thought have nothing 
to quicken the conscience or affect the soul." F. W. Newman, The 
Soul, p. 245 (second edition). — Yet he allows in another place (not quite 
consistently) that " pure intellectual error, depending on causes wholly 
unmoral, may and does perpetuate moral illusions, which are of the 
deepest injury to spiritual life." p. 169. Similar in principle, though 
not pushed to the same extreme consequences, is the theory of Mr. 
Morell, who says, "Reason up to a God, and the best you can do is 
to hypostatize and deify the final product of your own faculties ; but 
admit the reality of an intellectual intuition (as the mass of mankind 
virtually do), and the absolute stands before us in all its living reality." 2 
This distinction he carries so far as to assert that " to speak of logic, 
as such, being inspired, is a sheer absurdity ; " because " the process 
either of defining or of reasoning requires simply the employment of 
the formal laws of thought, the accuracy of which can be in no way 
affected by any amount of inspiration whatever : " 3 and in another pas- 
sage he maintains, to the same effect, that " the essential elements of 
religion in general, as of Christianity in particular, appertain strictly 

1 This argument is substantially the same with that of Hume, Dialogues con- 
cerning Natural Religion, Part II. " If we see a house, we conclude, with the great- 
est certainty, that it had an architect or builder . . . But surely you will not 
affirm that the universe bears such a resemblance to a house, that we can with the 
same certainty infer a similar cause." 

2 Philosophy of Religion, p. 39. 

3 Ibid., p. 173, 174. 



Lect. IV NOTES. 297 

to the intuitional portion of our nature, and may be realized in all 
their varied influence without the cooperation of any purely reflective 
processes." 1 Here he apparently overlooks the fact that the intuitive 
and reflective faculties invariably act in conjunction; that both are 
equally necessary to the existence of consciousness as such; and that 
logical forms are never called into operation, except in conjunction 
with the matter on which they are exercised. 



Note VIII., p. 95. 

In acknowledging Expiation as well as Prayer to be prompted by 
the natural feelings of men, I have no intention of controverting the 
opinion, so ably maintained by Archbishop Magee and Mr. Faber, of 
the divine origin of the actual rite of sacrifice. That the religious 
instincts of men should indicate the need of supplication and expiation, 
is perfectly consistent with the belief that the particular mode of both 
may have been first taught by a primitive revelation. That religion, 
in both its constituent elements, was communicated to the parents of 
the human race by positive revelation, seems the most natural inference 
from the Mosaic narrative. 2 Yet we may admit that the positive institu- 
tion must from the first have been adapted to some corresponding instinct 
of human nature; without which it would be scarcely possible to account 
for its continuance and universal diffusion, as well as for its various 
corruptions. We may thus combine the view of Archbishop Magee with 
that exhibited by Dr. Thomson. Bampton Lectures, pp. 30, 48. 



Note IX., p. 97. 

That the mere feeling of dependence by itself is not necessarily religion, 
is shown by Hegel, Philosophic der Religion ( Werke XII. p. 173). Speak- 
ing of the Roman worship of evil influences, Angerona, Fames, Robigo, 
etc., he rightly remarks that in such representations all conception of 
Deity is lost, though the feeling of fear and dependence remains. To the 
same effect is his sarcastic remark that, according to Schleiermacher's 
theory, the dog is the best Christian. 3 Mr. Parker (Discourse of Religion, 

1 Philosophy of Religion, p. 193. 

2 Even Mr. Davison, who contends for the human origin of the patriarchal 
sacrifices, which he regards as merely eucharistic and penitentiary, expressly 
admits the divine appointment of expiatory offerings. See his Inquiry into the 
Origin of Primitive Sacrifice {Remains, p. 121). 

3 See Rosenkranz, HegeVs Leben, p. 346. 



298 NOTES. Lect. IV. 

Ch. 1.) agrees with Sclileiermacher in resolving the religious sentiment 
into a mere sense of dependence; though he admits that this sentiment 
does not, itself, disclose the character of the object on which it depends. 
Referred to this principle alone, it is impossible to regard religious wor- 
ship as a moral duty. 

Note X., p. 97. 

See Kant, Metaphysik der Sitten, Abschn. II. (pp. 61, 71. ed. Rosen- 
kranz.) His theory has been combated by Julius Miiller, Christliche 
Lehre von der Siinde, B. I. c. 2. Compare also Hooker, E. P. I. ix. 2. 
Some excellent remarks to the same effect will be found in McCosh's 
Method of the Divine Government, p. 298 (fourth edition), and in Barthol- 
mess, Histoire des doctrines religieuses de la philosophic moderne, vol. i. p. 405. 

Note XI., p. 98. 

The theory which regards absolute morality as based on the immutable 
nature of God, must not be confounded with that which places it in his arbi- 
trary will. The latter view, which was maintained by Scotus, Occam, and 
others among the schoolmen, is severely criticized by Sir James Mackin- 
tosh, Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, section III., and by 
Miiller, Christliche Lehre von der Siinde, B. I. c. 3. The former principle 
is adopted by Cudworth as the basis of his treatise on Eternal and Im- 
mutable Morality. See B. I. c. 3. B. IV. c. 4. 

Note XII., p. 98. 

On the universality of expiatory rites, see Magee on the Atonement, 
note V. On their origin, see the same work, notes XLL, XLVI. to LI., 
LIV. to LVIII., and Mr. Faber's Treatise on the Origin of Expiatory Sac- 
rifice. 

Note XIII., p. 99. 
Sclileiermacher, Christliche Glaube, § 4. 

Note XIV., p. 100. 

Morell, Philosophy of Religion, p. 75. Mr. Morell here goes beyond the 
theory of his master, Sclileiermacher. The latter ( Christliche Glaube, § 4) 
admits that this supposed feeling of absolute dependence can never be 



Lect. IV. NOTES. 299 

completely attained in any single act of consciousness, but is generally 
suggested by the whole. Mr. Morell speaks as if we could be immediately 
conscious of our own annihilation, by a direct intuition of the infinite. 
Both theories are inadequate to prove the intended conclusion. That of 
Schleiermacher virtually amounts to a confession that the infinite is not a 
positive object of consciousness, but a mere negation suggested by the 
direct presence of the finite. That of Mr. Morell saves the intuition of 
the infinite, but annihilates itself; for if in any act of consciousness the 
subject becomes absolutely nothing, the consciousness must vanish with 
it; and if it stops at any point short of nothing, the object is not infinite. 

Note XV., p. 101. 

That this is the legitimate result of Schleiermacher^ theory, may be 
gathered from a remarkable passage in the Christliche Glaube, § 8, in 
which the polytheistic and monotheistic feelings of piety are compared 
together. The former, he says, is always accompanied by a sensible rep- 
resentation of its object, in which there is contained a germ of multi- 
plicity; but in the latter, the higher consciousness is so separated from 
the sensible, that the pious emotions admit of no greater difference than 
that of the elevating or depressing tone of the feeling. This seems to 
imply that, in Schleiermacher's opinion, to worship a God of many attri- 
butes, is equivalent to worshipping a plurality of Gods. And to those 
philosophers who make the Infinite in itself a direct object of religious 
worship, this identification is natural ; for a God of many attributes can- 
not be conceived as infinite, and therefore in one sense partakes of the 
limited divinity of Polytheism. But, on the other hand, a God of no 
attributes is no God at all; and the so-called monotheistic piety is nothing 
but an abortive attempt at mystical self-annihilation. Some acute stric- 
tures on Schleiermacher's theory from this point of view will be found in 
Drobisch, GruncUehren der Religionsphilosophie, p. 84. 

Note XVI., p. 102. 

Schleiermacher himself admits ( Christliche Glaube, § 33) that the theory 
of absolute dependence is incompatible with the belief that God can be 
moved by any human action. He endeavors, however, to reconcile 
this admission with the duty of prayer, by maintaining (§ 147) that the 
true Christian will pray for nothing but that which it comes within God's 
absolute purpose to grant. This implies something like omniscience in 
the true Christian, and something like hypocrisy in every act of prayer. 



300 NOTES. LECT. IV. 

Note XVII., p. 102. 

Schleiermacher (Chr. Glaube, § 49) attempts, not very successfully, to 
meet this objection, by maintaining that even our free acts are dependent 
upon the will of God. This is doubtless true; but it is true as an article 
of faith, not as a theory of philosophy : it may be believed, but cannot be 
conceived, nor represented in any act of human consciousness. The 
apparent contradiction implied in the coexistence of an infinite and a 
finite, will remain unsolved; and is most glaring in the theories of those 
philosophers, who, like Schleiermacher (§ 54), maintain that God actually 
does all that he can do. The only solution is to confess that we have no 
true conception of the infinite at all. Schleiermacher himself is unable to 
avoid the logical consequence of his position. He admits (§ 80) that God's 
omnipotence is limited if we do not allow him to be the author of sin; 
though he endeavors to soften this monstrous admission by taking it in 
conjunction with the fact that God is also the author of grace. 

Note XVIII., p. 104. 

De Augmentis Scientiarwn, L. III. c. 1. Compare Theophilus of Antioch, 
Ad Autolycum, I. 5. " As the soul in the human body is not seen, being 
invisible to men, but is made known through the movement of the body, 
so God cannot be seen by human and bodily eyes, but is discovered to 
human intelligence by His providence and His works." l And Athanasius, 
Contra Gentes, c. 35. " For often the workman is recognized in his works ; 
as they say of the sculptor Phidias, that the symmetry and nice propor- 
tions of his works revealed him to the beholders, even when he was not 
present himself, so the order of the universe necessarily reveals the divine 
Creator, though He is invisible to mortal eyes." On the other hand, 
Hegel, PhilosopMe der Religion ( Werke, XII. p. 395), insists on the neces- 
sity of knowing God as He is, as an indispensable condition of all The- 
ology. 

Note XIX., p. 104. 

Justin. Mart. Apol. I. c. 6. "Indeed, Father, and God, and Lord, and 
Master, are not names, but only appellatives, derivatives from His benefits 
and His works."— Basil. Adv. Eunom. I. 12. " As to the conceit of having 
found out the very essential being of God, — what arrogance and pride 

1 Compare a similar argument in Bishop Berkeley, Minute Philosopher, Dial. 
IV. $ 4. 



Lect. IV. NOTES. SOI 

does it display! ... for let us inquire of him, by what method he boasts 
of having made such a discovery? is it from the common conception? 
But this only suggests that God exists, not what is His essence.'' — Gregor. 
Nysscn. Contr. Eunom. Orat. XII. "Thus also of the maker of the 
world, — we know that He is, but we do not deny that we are ignorant of 
the mode of his being."— Cyril. Hieros. Catech. YI. 2. "For we do not 
point out what God is ; but we candidly confess that we have no accurate 
knowledge of Him, for in things pertaining to God, it is great knowledge, 
to confess our ignorance." — Pascal, Pens&s, Partie II. Art. III. § 5. ""VVe 
know that there is an infinite, and we are ignorant of its nature. For 
example, we know that it is false, that numbers are finite; then it is true 
that there is an infinite in numbers. But we do not know what it is. It is 
false that it is even; equally so that it is uneven; for, in adding the unit, 

it does not change its nature; nevertheless it is a number We may, 

then, well know that there is a God, without knowing, what He is." The 
distinction is strongly repudiated by Hegel, Werke, XII. p. 396. Cf. IX. 
p. 19. XIV. p. 219. In the last of these passages, he goes so far as to 
say, that to deny to man a knowledge of the infinite is the sin against the 
Holy Ghost. The ground of this awful charge is little more than the rep- 
etition of an observation in Aristotle's Metaphysics, that God is not envi- 
ous, and therefore cannot withhold from us absolute knowledge. 

Note XX., p. 105. 

Advancement of Learning, p. 128. ed. Montagu. Compare De Augmentis, 
III. 2. 

Note XXI., p. 106. 

This argument is excellently drawn out in Sir W. Hamilton's forthcom- 
ing Lectures on Metaphysics, Lecture II. So Mr. F. W. Newman observes, 
acutely and truly, "Nothing but a consciousness of active originating 
Will in ourselves suggests, or can justify, the idea of a mighty Will per- 
vading Nature; and to merge the former in the latter, is to sacrifice the 
Premise to the glory of the Conclusion." The Soul, p. 40 (second 
edition). 

Note XXII., p. 106. 

Arist. Metaph. 1. 5. "Xenophanes was the first . . . who, on surveying 
the universe, said that the One was God." — Cicero, Acad. Qucest. IV. 37. 
" Xenophanes said that the One was All, and that that was not change- 

26 



302 NOTES. Lect.IV. 

able, and was God." — Apuleius, Asdepius Herm. Trimeg. c. 20. " For I do 
not expect that the Maker of all majesty, and the Father or Lord of all 
things can be called by one name, though that were made up of many ; 
but that He be unnamed or rather all-named, since indeed he is One and 
All, so that necessarily, either all things be designated by his name, or 
He himself by the names of all things." — Lessing, as quoted by Jacobi, 
Werke, IV. p. 54. " The orthodox notions of the Deity are no more for 
me; I cannot enjoy them, — One and All. I know nothing else." — Schel- 
ling, Bruno, p. 185. " So the All is One, the One is All, both the same, 
not different." 

Note XXIII., p. 108. 

Clemens Alex. Stromata, V. 11. "If therefore .... we should in some 
way draw nigh to the intelligence of the Omnipotent, we should come to 
know, not what He is, but what He is not." — Augustin. Enarr. in Psalm 
lxxxv. 12. "God is ineffable; we more easily say what He is not, than 
what He is." — Fichte, Bestimmung des Menschen ( Werke, II. p. 305). " Thou 
wiliest, — for thou wilt, that my free obedience have consequences unto all 
eternity ; the act of Thy Will I do not apprehend, and only know, that it is 
not like my own." 

Note XXIV., p. 108. 

The distinction between speculative and regulative knowledge holds an im- 
portant place in the philosophy of Kant; but his mode of applying it is 
the exact reverse of that adopted in the text. According to Kant, the idea 
of the absolute or unconditioned has a regulative, but not a speculative 
value : it cannot be positively apprehended by act of thought; but it serves 
to give unity and direction to the lower conceptions of the understanding; 
indicating the point to which they tend, though they never actually reach it. 
But the regulative character thus paradoxically assigned, not to thought, 
but to its negation, in truth belongs to the finite conceptions as actually 
apprehended, not to any unapprehended idea of the infinite beyond them. 
Every object of positive thought, being conceived as finite, is necessarily 
regarded as limited by something beyond itself; though this something is 
not itself actually conceived. The true purpose of this manifest incom- 
pleteness of all human thought, is to point out the limits which we cannot 
pass; not, as Kant maintains, to seduce us into vain attempts to pass 
them. If there is but one faculty of thought, that which Kant calls the 
Understanding, occupied with the finite only, there is an obvious end to be 
answered in making us aware of its limits, and warning us that the 



Lect. IV. NOTES. 303 

boundaries of thought are not those of existence. But if, with Kant, we 
distinguish the Understanding from the Reason, and attribute to the latter 
the delusions necessarily arising from the idea of the unconditioned, we 
must believe in the existence of a special faculty of lies, created for the ex- 
press purpose of deceiving those who trust to it. In the philosophy of re- 
ligion, the true regulative ideas, which are intended to guide our thoughts, 
are the finite forms under which alone we can think of the infinite God ; 
though these, while we employ them, betray their own speculative insuf- 
ficiency and the limited character of all human knowledge. 

Note XXV., p. 108. 

" The purport of these remarks is only this .... that, in the further 
progress of the investigations, the question cannot be, what and how God 
is constituted in Himself, but only how we have to think of Him in relation to 
ourselves and the whole morally-natural woiid. For by our faith it is not that 
the being of God is theoretically known, but only His existence, in the special 
relation to the moral design of the world, is revealed for us, as morally constituted 
beings ; and this is in a double sense a purely relative knowledge, first by 
being limited to a determined nature of the subject that knows, and sec- 
ondly by the determined relation of the object that is known. Hence it 
follows, that there is nothing to be said here of the knowledge of the 
essence, the quality of a Being, but only of a nearer determination of the 
idea of God, as we have to form it, from our point of view; in other words, 
we are to think of God only by means of relations." Drobisch, Grundlehren 
der Heligionsphilosophie, p. 189. — "The Scripture intimates to us certain 
facts concerning the Divine Being : but conveying them to us by the me- 
dium of language, it only brings them before us darkly, under the signs 
appropriate to the thoughts of the human mind. And though this kind of 
knowledge is abundantly instructive to us in point of sentiment and 
action; teaches us, that is, both how to feci, and how to act, towards God; 
— for it is the language that we understand, the language formed by our 
own experience and practice; — it is altogether inadequate in point of 
Science." Hampden, Hampton Lectures, p. 54 (s*econd edition). — "We 
should rather point out to objectors that what is revealed is practical, and 
not speculative; — that what the Scriptures are concerned with is, not the 
philosophy of the Human Mind in itself, nor yet the philosophy of the 
Divine Nature in itself, but (that which is properly Beligion) the relation 
and connection of the two Beings; — what God is to us, — what He has 
done and will do for us, — and what we are to be and to do, in regard to 
Him." Whately, Sermons, p. 56 (third edition). — Compare Berkeley, 
Minute Philosopher, Dial. VII. § II. 



304 NOTES. Lect. V. 

LECTURE V. 

Note I., p. 112. 



Analogy, Part I. Ch. VI. 



Note II., p. 113. 



"When lie (the Skeptic) awakes from his dream, he will be the first to 
join in the laugh against himself; and to confess, that all his objections 
are mere amusement, and can have no other tendency than to show the 
whimsical condition of mankind, who must act, and reason, and believe; 
though they are not able, by their most diligent inquiry, to satisfy them- 
selves concerning the foundation of these operations, or to remove the ob- 
jections which may be raised against them." Hume, Essay on the Academ- 
ical Philosophy, Part II. 



Note III., p. 113. 

See Plato, Parmenides, p. 129, Philebus, p. 14, Sophistes, p. 251, Republic, 
VII. p. 524. The mystery is insoluble, because thought cannot explain its 
own laws ; for the laws must necessarily be assumed in the act of explana- 
tion. Every object of thought, as being one object, and one out of many, 
all being related to a common consciousness, must contain in itself a com- 
mon and a distinctive feature; and the relation between these two consti- 
tutes that very diversity in unity, without which no thought is possible. 



Note IV., p. 114. 

" The commerce between soul and body is a reciprocal dependence of de- 
termination. Accordingly we ask in the first place, how is such a commerce 
possible between a thinking being and a body? . . . The foundation of 
the difficulty seems to lie here: The soul is an object of the inward sense, 

and the body an object of the outward Now by no reason do we 

come to understand, how that which is an object of the internal sense, is to 
be a cause of that which is an object of the outward." Kant's Vorlesungen 
uber die Metaphysik, (1821), p. 224. 



Lect. y. notes. 305 

Note V., p. 115. 

" When we examine the idea which we have of all finite minds, we see 
no necessary connection between their volition and the movement of any 
body whatsoever ; we see, on the contrary, that there is none at all, and 
can be none." — Malebranche, Becherche de la Verite, L.VI. Part II. Ch. 3. 
"Man is, to himself, the most astonishing object of nature; for he cannot 
conceive what body is, and still less what is spirit, and least of all can he 
conceive how a body can be united with a spirit. That is the acme of his 
difficulties ; and yet that is his own being." — Pascal, Pensees, Partie I. Art 
vi. § 26. " I am, to be sure, compelled to believe, — that is, to act as if I 
thought, that my tongue, my hand, my foot, can be put in motion by my 
will; but how a mere breath, a pressure of the intelligence upon itself, 
such as the will is, can be the principle of motion in the heavy earthly 
mass, — of that not only can I have no conception, but the mere assertion 
is, before the tribunal of the reflecting intelligence, nothing but sheer 
unintelligence." — Fichte, Bestimmung des Menschen, (Werke, II. p. 290.) — 
Spinoza, Ethica, III. 2, denies positively that such commerce can take 
place. " Neither can the body determine the mind to thought, nor the 
mind the body to motion, or to quiet, or to anything else." 



Note VI., p. 115. 

The theory of Divine Assistance and Occasional Causes was partially 
hinted at by Descartes, and more completely elaborated by his followers, 
De La Forge and Malebranche. See Descartes, Principia, L. II. § 36. De 
La Forge, Traite de V esprit de Vhomme, Ch. XVI. Malebranche, Becherche 
de la Verite, L. VI. P. II. Ch. 3; Entretiens sur la Metaphysique, Ent. VII. 
Cf. Hegel, Geschichte der Phil. ( Werke, XV. p. 330.) For Leibnitz's theory 
of a Preestablished Harmony, see his Systeme nouveau de la Nature, § 12 — 
15, Opera, ed. Erdmann, p. 127; Troisieme Eclaircissement, Ibid. p. 134; 
Theodice'e, § 61, Ibid. p. 520. A brief account of these two systems, to- 
gether with that of Physical Influx, which is rather a statement of the 
phenomenon, than a theory to account for it, is given by Euler, Lettres a 
une Princesse d y AUemagne, Partie II. Lettre 14. ed. Cournot; and by Krug, 
Philos. Lexikon ; Art. Gemeinschaft der Seele und des Leibes. The hypothe- 
sis, that the commerce of soul and body is effected by means of a Plastic 
Nature in the soul itself, is suggested by Cudworth, Intellectual System, B. I. 
Ch. III. § 37, and further developed by Leclerc, Bibliotheque Choisie, II. p. 
113, who supposes this plastic nature to be an intermediate principle, dis- 
tinct from both soul and body. See Mosheim's note in Harrison's edition 
26* 



306 notes. Lect. V. 

of Cudworth, Yol. 1. p. 248. See also Leibnitz, Sur le Principe de Vie, 
Opera, ed. Erdmann, p. 429; Laromiguiere, Lecons de Philosophie, P. II. 
1.9. 

Note YIL, p. 115. 

These two analogies between our natural and spiritual knowledge are 
adduced in a remarkable passage of Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium, 
Orat. XII. Of the soul, and its relation to the body, he says :...." We 
live in ignorance of all things, of ourselves first of all, and then of all other 
things. For who is there, that has come to a comprehension of his own 
soul? Who has a knowledge of its essence? whether it is material or im- 
material? Whether purely incorporeal, or whether there be something 
corporeal in it ? how it comes into being, how it is regulated ? whence it 
enters the body, how it departs?" etc. {Opera, Paris. 1615. Yol. If. p. 
321.) Of body as distinguished from its attributes, he says: "For if 
any one were to analyze, into its component parts, what appears to the 
senses, and, having stripped the subject of all its attributes, should strive 
to get a knowledge of it, as it is in itself, I do not see what would be left 
for the mind to contemplate at all. For once take away color, figure, 
weight, size, motion, relativity, each one of which is not of itself the 
body, and yet all of them belong to the body, — what will be left to stand 
for the body ? Whoever, therefore, is ignorant of himself, how is he to 
have knowledge of things above himself? " Ibid. p. 322. 



Note YIII., p. 115. 

Essay on the Academical Philosophy, (Philosophical Works, Yol. IY. p. 
182.) 

Note IX., p. 116. 

The difficulty is ingeniously stated by Pascal, Pensees, Partie I. Art II. 
" For is there anything more absurd, than to pretend, that in dividing ever 
a space, we come finally to such a division, that in dividing it in two, each 
of the halves remains invisible, and without any extension? I would ask 
those, who have this idea, if they clearly conceive how two invisibles 
touch each other; if everywhere, then they are only one thing, and con- 
sequently the two together are indivisible; and if not everywhere, then it is 
only in a part that they come in contact; then they have parts, and there- 
fore they are not indivisible." 



Lect. V. NOTES. 307 

Note X., p. 118. 

Kant's theory, that we know phenomena only, not things in themselves, 
is severely criticized by Dr. McCosh, Method of the Divine Government, p. 
530 (4th edition). I have before observed that Kant has, in two points at 
least, extended his doctrine beyond its legitimate place; first, in maintain- 
ing that our knowledge of the personal self is equally phenomenal with 
that of external objects; and secondly, in dogmatically asserting that the 
thing in itself does not resemble the phenomenon of which we are conscious, 
Against the first of these statements it may be fairly objected, that my 
personal existence is identical with my consciousness of that existence; 
and that any other aspect of my personality, if such exists in relation to 
any other intelligence, is in this case the phenomenon to which my per- 
sonal consciousness furnishes the real counterpart. Against the second, it 
may be objected, that if, upon Kant's own hypothesis, we are never di- 
rectly conscious of the thing in itself, we have no ground for saying that 
it is unlike, any more than that it is like, the object of which we are con- 
scious ; and that, in the absence of all other evidence, the probability is in 
flavor of that aspect which is at least subjectively true. But when these 
deductions are made, the hypothesis of Kant, in its fundamental position, 
remains unshaken. It then amounts to no more than this; that we can 
see things only as our faculties present them to us; and that we can never 
be sure that the mode of operation of our faculties is identical with that of 
other intelligences, embodied or spiritual. Within these limits, the theory 
more nearly resembles a truism than a paradox, and contains nothing 
that can be regarded as formidable, either by the philosopher or by the 
theologian. 

In the same article, Dr. McCosh criticizes Sir William Hamilton's cog- 
nate theory of the relativity of all knowledge. With the highest respect 
for Dr. McCosh's philosophical ability, I cannot help thinking that he has 
mistaken the character of the theory which he censures, and that the ob- 
jection which he urges is hardly applicable. He attempts to avail himself 
of Sir W. Hamilton's own theory of the veracity of consciousness. He 
asks, "Does not the mind in sense-perception hold the object to be a real 
object?" Undoubtedly; but reality in this sense is not identical with ab- 
solute existence unmodified by the laws of the percipient mind. Man can 
conceive reality, as he conceives other objects, only as the laws of his 
faculties permit ; and in distinguishing reality from appearance, he is not 
distinguishing the related from the unrelated. Both appearance and re- 
ality must be given in consciousness, to be apprehended at all; and the 
distinction is only between some modes of consciousness, such as those of 
a dream, which are regarded as delusive, and others, as in a waking state, 



308 NOTES. Lect. V. 

which are regarded as veracious. But consciousness, whatever may be its 
veracity, can tell us nothing concerning the identity of its objects with 
those of which we are not conscious. 

Dr. McCosh, in the above criticism, also classes Professor Ferrier as a 
representative of the same school with Kant and Hamilton. This classifi- 
cation is, at least, questionable. Professor Ferrier's system more nearly 
approaches to the Philosophy of the Absolute than to that of the Relative. 
He himself distinctly announces that he undertakes "to lay down the 
laws, not only of our thinking and knowing, but of all possible thinking 
and knowing." i Such an undertaking, whether it be successful or not, 
is, in its conception, the very opposite of the system which maintains that 
our knowledge is relative to our faculties. 

Note XL, p. 119. 
See above, Lecture IV. note 25. 

Note XII., p. 119. 

" It is the same with other mysteries, where, for well regulated minds, 
there is always to be found an explanation, sufficient for faith, but never 
as much as is necessary for comprehension. The what it is (rl eVn) 
is sufficient for us; but the how (ircHs) is beyond our comprehension, and 
is not at all necessary for us." — Leibnitz, Theodicee, Discours de la con- 
formity de la Foi avec la liaison, § 56. 

Note XIIL, p. 120. 

" It is plain, that, in any communication from an Infinite Being to 
creatures of finite capacities, one of two things must happen. Either the 
former must raise the latter almost to His own level; or else He must suit 

the form of His communication to their powers of apprehension If we 

turn to Scripture, however, we shall see how this matter is decided. In 
God's dealings with men we find ' wrath/ 'jealousy/ ' repentance/ and 
other affections, ascribed to the Divine Being. He is described as 'sitting 
on a throne; ' His ' eyes ' are said ' to behold the children of men; ' not 
to mention other instances, which must suggest themselves to every one, 
in which God condescends to convey to us, not the very reality indeed, but 
something as near the reality as He sees it expedient for us to know." 
Professor Lee, The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, pp. 63, 61 (second edition). 

1 Institutes of Metaphysic, p. 55. 



Lect. V. NOTES. 309 

Note XIV., p. 122. 

Plato, Sophistes, p. 242. " But our Eleatic sect, from Xenophancs, and 
vet earlier, go through with their views, as if what we call all were in 
reality only one." — Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrh. Hyp. I. 225. " Xenophanes 
laid down the doctrine .... that the All was One." — Arist. Metaplx. II. 4. 
30. " For whatever is different from that which is, (entity), is not; so 
that, according to the view of Parmenides, it must of necessity be the 
case, that all things that are, are one, and that this is that which is 
(entity)." — Plato, Parmenides, p. 127. "How is it, Zeno, did you mean 
this, that if the things in being are many, then that these many must be 

like and unlike, and that this is impossible did you not say so ? 

Exactly so, said Zeno." — Arist. Soph. Elench. 10. 2 "Zeno thought 

that all things are one . . . ." — Arist. De Ccdo III. 1. 5. "For some of 
these did away altogether with the idea of generation and of dissolution ; 
for they maintained that none of the things in existence really came into 
being, and perished, but that all this only appeared so to us." — Diog. 
Laert. ix. 24 (De Melisso). "It seemed to him, that the All was infinite, 
and unchangeable, and immovable, and one, like itself, and complete; 
and that motion was not real, but only apparent." Cf. Plato, Theoetetus, 
p. 183. Compare Karsten, Parmenidis Heliquioz, p. 157, 194. Brandis, 
Commentationes Eleaticce, p. 213, 214. 

Note XV., p. 122. 

Plato, Thecet. p. 152. "I will tell you, — and this is no trifling talk, — 
that nothing is an independent unity, and that you can rightly attribute to 
nothing any quality whatsoever; but if you call a thing great, it will at 
once appear small, if heavy, light, and so in like manner of all, so that 
nothing is one or somewhat or of any quality soever; but, that by motion, 
change, mixture, all things together are only becoming, while we say 
wrongly that they are; for nothing ever really is, but all things are ever 
becoming; and herein are the philosophers agreed, Parmenides excepted." 
— Diogenes Laert. ix. 51. " He said (Protagoras) that the soul was nothing 
but perceptions." — Aristot. De Xenophane, Zenone et Gorgia, c. 5. (De Gor- 
gia.) "He said that there was nothing in existence; and if there were any- 
thing, that it was not an object of knowledge; and that if there were any- 
thing in existence and an object of knowledge, it could not be made known 
to others." .... "What we call a mind, is nothing but a heap or collection 
of different perceptions, united together by certain relations, and supposed, 
though falsely, to be endowed with' a perfect simplicity and identity." 
Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, Part IV. sect. 2. — " 'Tis confessed by the 



310 NOTES. Lect. V. 

most judicious philosophers, that our ideas of bodies are nothing but col- 
lections formed by the mind of the ideas of the several distinct sensible 
qualities, of which objects are composed, and which we find to have a 

constant union with each other The smooth and uninterrupted 

progress of the thought .... readily deceives the mind, and makes us 
ascribe an identity to the changeable succession of connected qualities." 
Ibid. sect. 3. 

Note XVI., p. 122. 

" We must come now to the great question, which M. Bayle has lately 
brought upon the tapis, — namely, whether a truth, and especially a truth 

of faith, can be subject to insolvable objections He thinks that, in 

Theology, the doctrine of Predestination is of this nature, and in Philoso- 
phy that of Continuity (the Continuum) in space. These are in fact the 
two labyrinths, which have tried theologians and philosophers of all times. 
Libertus Fromodus, a theologian of Louvain, who has studied much the 
subject of Grace, and has also written a book, entitled Labyrinthus de com- 
positions Continui, has well expressed the difficulties of each; and the 
famous Ochin has well represented what he calls the Labyrinths of Predes- 
tination" Leibnitz, Theodicee, Discours de la conformity de la Foi avec la 
liaison, § 24. Compare Sir W. Hamilton's Discussions, p. 632. 

Note XVIL, p. 123. 

See Bishop Browne's criticism of Archbishop King, Procedure of the 
Understanding, p. 15. " He hath unwarily dropped some such shocking 
expressions as these, The best representations we can make of God are infinitely 
short of Truth. Which God forbid, in the sensejiis adversaries take it; for 
then all our reasonings concerning Him would be groundless and false. 
But the saying is evidently true in a favorable and qualified sense and 
meaning; namely, that they are infinitely short of the real, true, internal 
Nature of God as He is in Himself." Compare Divine Analogy, p. 57. 
" Though all the Revelations of God are true, as coming from Him who is 
Truth itself; yet the truth and substance of them doth not consist in this, 
that they give us any new set of ideas, and express them in a language 
altogether unknown before ; or that both the conceptions and terms are 
so immediately and properly adapted to the true and real nature of the 
things revealed, that they could not without great impropriety and even 
profaneness be ever applied to the things of this world. But the truth of 
them consists in this; that whereas the terms said conceptions made use of 
in those Revelations are strictly proper to things worldly and obvious ; 



Lect. V. NOTES. 311 

they are from thence transferred analogically to the correspondent objects 
of another world with as much truth and reality, as when they are made 
use of in their first and most literal propriety; and this is a solid foundation 
both of a clear and certain knowledge, and of a firm and well grounded 
Faith." 

Note XVIII., p. 123. 

Augustin. Confess. 1. XIII. c. 16. " For as Thou altogether art, so Thou 
alone knowest, — Thou, who art unchangeably, and knowest unchange- 
' ably, and wiliest unchangeably. And Thy essence knoweth and willeth 
unchangeably, and Thy knowledge is and willeth unchangeably, and Thy 
will is, and knoweth unchangeably. Nor doth it seem right in Thy sight, 
that, as the Light unchangeable knoweth itself, so It be known by the 
changeable being, that is enlightened by It." 

Note XIX., p. 124. 

. See Hegel, Philosophie der Geschichte, Werke, IX. pp. 238, 298; PMlosophie 
der Religion, Werke, XI. p. 356, XII. p. 119. Schleiermacher substantially 
admits the same facts, though he attempts to connect them with a different 
theory. 1 He considers that there is a pantheistic and a personal element 
united in all religions : and this is perhaps true of heathen religions sub- 
jected to the philosophical analysis of a later age; though it may be 
doubted whether both elements are distinctly recognized by the worship- 
per himself. But even from this point of view, the Jewish religion stands 
in marked contrast to both Eastern and Western heathenism. In the 
latter forms of religion, the elements of personality and infinity, so far as 
they are manifested at all, are manifested in different beings : this is ob- 
servable both in the subordinate emanations which give a kind of second- 
ary personality to the Indian Pantheism, and in the philosophical abstrac- 
tion of a supreme principle of good, which connects a secondary notion of 
the infinite with the Grecian Mythology. The Jewish religion still remains 
distinct and unique, in so far as in it the attributes of personality and in- 
finity are united in one and the same living and only God. 

Note XX., p. 126. 

" And the Father, who, indeed, in respect of us, is invisible and indeter- 
minable, is known by His own Word; and being indeclarable, is declared 

1 Reden uber Religion, ( Werke, I. pp. 401, 441.) 



312 NOTES . Lect. V. 

to us by the Word Himself. Again, it is only the Father that knoweth His 
Word; and that both these things are so hath the Lord manifested. And 
on this account the Son revealeth the knowledge of the Father'by His own 
manifestation. For the knowledge of the Father is the manifestation of 
the Son; for all things are manifested by the Word. That therefore we 
might know, that it is the Son himself who hath come, that maketh known 
the Father to them that believe on Him, he said to his disciples: 'No 
man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the 
Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him/ " 
Irenseus, Contr. Hceres.lY. 6, 3. "Accordingly, therefore, the Word of 
God became incarnate, and lived in human form, that He might quicken 
the body, and that, as in the creation, He is known by His works, so also 
He might work in man, and manifest Himself everywhere, leaving nothing 
void of His divine nature and knowledge." Athanasius, De Incarn. Verbi 

c. 45 " The Son of God became incarnate .... in order that man 

might have a way to the God of man through the man-God. For He is 
the Mediator of God and man, the man Christ Jesus." . . . Augustin. De 
Civ. Dei, XL 2. 



Note XXL, p. 126. 

" We who believe that God lived upon the earth, and that He took upon 
Him the lowliness of human form for the sake of man's salvation, are far 
from the opinion of those who think that God has no care for anything." 
Tertullian, Adv. Marc. II. 16. 



Note XXII. , p. 126. 

It is only a natural consequence of their own principles, when the advo- 
cates of a philosophy of the Absolute maintain that the Incarnation of 
Christ has no relation to time. Thus Schelling says : " The theologians 
also expound, in like empiric manner, the Incarnation of God in Christ, — 
that God took upon Him human nature in a definite momentum of time, a 
thing impossible of conception, as God is eternally out of all time. The 
Incarnation of God is therefore an incarnation from eternity (a becoming 
'manifest in the flesh ' from all eternity) . . . . " l Hegel, in his Lectures 
on the Philosophy of History, 2 thus comments on the language of St. 
Paul : " When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son ; such is 

1 Vorlesungen Mber die Methode des Academischen Studium, p. 192. Fitcke speaks 
to the same effect, Anweisung zum seligen Leben ( Werke, V. p. 482). 

2 Werke, IX. p. 388. 



Lect. V. NOTES. 313 

the language of the Bible. That means nothing else than this : the self- 
consciousness had risen up to those momenta, which belong to the con- 
ception of the Spirit, and to the necessity of apprehending these momenta 
after an absolute method." This marvellous elucidation of the sacred text 
may perhaps receive some further light, or darkness, from the obscure 
passages of the same author, quoted subsequently in the text of this Lec- 
ture : and such is the explanation of his theory given by Baur, Christliche 
Gnosis, p. 715 : " From the stand-point of speculative thought, the Incarna- 
tion is no single historical fact, once taken place, but an eternal deter- 
mination of the essential nature of God, by virtue of which God only so 
far becomes man (in every individual man) as He is man from eternity. The 
sorrowful humiliation to which Christ made Himself subject as God-man, 
God bears at all times as man. The atonement achieved by Christ is not 
a fact which has come to pass in time, but an eternal reconciliation of God 
with Himself, and the resurrection and exaltation of Christ is only the re- 
gress of the Spirit to itself. Christ as man, as God-man, is man in his 
universality, not a particular individual, but the universal individual." It 
is no wonder that, to a philosophy of these lofty pretensions, the personal 
existence of Christ should be a question of perfect indifference. 1 From a 
similar point of view, Marheineke says : " The incarnation of God, appre- 
hended in its possibility, is the real incarnation of divine truth, which is 
not only the thought of God, but also his very essence ; and Divine and 
Human, though still different, are yet no longer separate." Grundlehren 
der Christlichen Dogmatik, § 312. It is difficult to see what distinction can 
be made, in these theories, between the Incarnation of Christ as Man, and 
His eternal Generation as the Son of God; and indeed these passages, and 
those subsequently quoted from Hegel, appear intentionally to identify 
the two. 

Note XXIII., p. 127. 

Encyklopadie, $§ 564, 566. For the benefit of any reader who may be 
disposed to play the part of (Edipus, I subjoin the entire passage in the 
original. The meaning may perhaps, as Professor Ferrier observes of 
Hegel's philosophy in general, be extracted by distillation, but certainly 
not by literal translation. 

" Was Gott als Geist ist, — Dies richtig und bestimmt im Gedanken zu 
fassen, dazu wird griindliche Speculation erfordert. Es sind zunachst die 

1 For a criticism of these pantheistic perversions of Christianity, see Drobisch, 
Grundlehren der Religionsphilosophie, p. 247. The consummation of the pantheistic 
view may be found in Blasche, Philosophische Unsterblichkeitlehre, § 51-53. Here 
the eternal Incarnation of God is exhibited as the perpetual production of men, 
as phenomenal manifestations of the absolute unity. 

27 



314 NOTES. LE.CT. V. 

Satze darin enthalten : Gott ist Gott nur in sofern er sich selber weiss ; sein 
sick Sich-wissen ist ferner sein Selbstbewusstseyn im Menschen, und das 
Wissen des Menschen von Gott, das fortgeht zum Sich-wissen des Men- 
schen in Gott. 

Der absolute Geist in der aufgehobenen Unmittelbarkeit und Sinnlichkeit 
der Gestalt und des Wissens, ist dem Inhalte nach der an-und-fur-sich- 
seyende Geist der Natur und des Geistes, der Form nach ist er zunachst 
fur das subjective Wissen der Vorstellung. Diese giebt den Momenten 
seines Inhalts einerseits Selbststandigkeit und macht sie gegen einander zu 
Voraussetzungen, and zu einander folgenden Erscheinungen und zu einem 
Zusammenhang des Geschehens nach endlichen Refleodonsbestimmungen ; ander- 
seits wird solche Form endlicher Yorstellungsweise in dem Glaubea an 
den Einen Geist und in der Andacht des Cultus aufgehoben. 

In diesem Trennen scheidet sich die Form von dem Inhalte, und in jener 
die unterschiedenen Momente des Begriffs zu besondern Spharen oder Ele- 
menten ab, in deren jedem sich der absolute Inhalt darstellt, — a) als in 
seiner Manifestation bei sich selbst bleibender, Ewiger Inhalt; — /3) als 
Unterscheidung des ewigen Wesens von seiner Manifestation, welche durch 
diesen Unterschied die Erscheinungswelt wird, in die der Inhalt tritt; — 7) 
als unendliche Riickkehr und Versohnung der entausserten Welt mit dem 
ewigen Wesen, das Zuruckgehen desselben aus der Erscheinung in die 
Einheit seiner tulle." 

The passage which, though perhaps bearing more directly on my argu- 
ment, I have not ventured to attempt to translate, 1 is the following, § 568. 

" Im Momente der Besonderheit aber des Urtheils, ist dies concrete ewige 
Wesen das Vorausgesetzte, und seine Bewegung die Erschaffung der 
Erscheinung, das Zerfallen des ewigen Moments der Vermittlung, des 
einigen Sohnes, in den selbststandigen Gegensatz, einerseits des Himmels 
und der Erde, der elementarischen und concreten Natur, andererseits des 
Geistes als mit ihr im Verhaltniss stehenden, somit endlichen Geistes, 
welcher als das Extrem der in sich seyenden Negativitat sich zum Bosen 
verselbststandigt, solches Extrem durch seine Beziehung auf eine gegen- 
uberstehende Natur und durch seine damit gesetzte eigene Naturlichkeit 
ist, in dieser als denkend zugleich auf das Ewige gerichtet, aber damit in 
ausserlicher Beziehung stent." 

Gorres, in the preface to the second edition of his Athanasius, p. ix., ex- 
hibits a specimen of a new Creed on Hegelian principles, to be drawn up 
by a general council composed of the more advanced theologians of the 
day. The qualifications for a seat in the council are humorously described, 

1 [After what has been said by the author, both here and in the Lecture, on 
page 128, it were certainly unbecoming to attempt a translation for the American 
edition.— Trans!.] 



Lect. y. notes. 315 

and the creed itself contains much just and pointed satire. It will hardly, 
however, bear quotation; for a caricature on such a subject, however 
well intended, almost unavoidably carries with it a painful air of irrever- 
ence. 



Note XXIV., p. 128. 

See especially Phdnomenologie des Geistes, Werke, II. p. 557; Philosophie 
der Geschichte, Werke, IX. p. 387; Philosophie der Religion, Werke, XII. p. 
247; Geschichte der Philosophie, Weinke, XIY. p. 222, XV. p. 88. 



Note XXV., p. 128. 

The indecision of Hegel upon this vital question is satisfactorily ac- 
counted for by his disciple, Strauss. To a philosophy which professes to 
exhibit the universal relations of necessary ideas, it is indifferent whether 
they have actually been realized in an individual case or not. This ques- 
tion is reserved for the Critic of History. See Streitschriften, Heft III. p. 
68. Dorner too, while pointing out the merits of Hegel's Christology, ad- 
mits that the belief in a historical Christ has no significance in his system; 
and that those disciples who reject it carry out that system most fully. 
See Lehre von der Person Christi, p. 409. 



Note XXVI., p. 129. 

Philosophie der Religion, Werke, XII. p. 286. In another passage of the 
same work, p. 281, the Atonement is explained in the following language: 
" Therein only is the possibility of the atonement — that the essential one- 
ness of the divine and the human nature becomes known; that is the nec- 
essary basis ; man can know himself taken up into God, so far as God is 
not somewhat foreign to him, somewhat external, accidental, but when 
he, according to his essential being, his freedom and subjectivity, is taken 
up into God; but this is possible, only in so far as this subjectivity of human 
nature is in God Himself." Compare also p. 330, and Phdnomenologie des 
Geistes, Werke, II. pp. 544, 572. Philosophie der Geschichte, Werke, IX. p. 
405. Geschichte der Philosophie, Werke, XV. p. 100. 



Note XXVII., p. 129. 
Grundlehren der Chrisilichen Dogmatih, § 319, 320. 



316 NOTES. Lect. VI. 

Note XXVIII., p. 130. 

Ibid. §§ 325, 326. A similar theory is maintained, almost in the same 
language, by Rosenkranz, Encyklopadie der theologischen Wissenschaften, § 
26, 27. The substance of this view is given by Hegel himself, WerTce, IX. 
pp. 394, 457; XY. p. 89. Some valuable criticisms on the principle of it 
may be found in Dr. Mill's Observations on the application of Pantheistic 
Principles to the Criticism of the Gospel, pp. 16, 42. 

Note XXIX., p. 131. 

I 
Leben Jesu, § 151. English Translation, Yol. III. p. 437. The passage 

has also been translated by Dr. Mill in his Observations on the application of 

Pantheistic Principles, etc. p. 50. I have slightly corrected the former 

version by the aid of the latter. A sort of anticipation of the theory may 

be found in Hegel's Phdnomenologie des Geistes, Werke, II. p. 569. 

Note XXX., p. 131. 

" Only the Metaphysical, but in nowise the Historical, makes our salva- 
tion." Eichte, Anweisung zum seligen Leben, ( Werke, Y. p. 485). With this 
may be compared the language of Spinoza, Ep. XXI. " I say that it is 
not at all necessary to salvation to know Christ after the flesh ; but of that 
eternal Son of God, the eternal Wisdom of God, which has manifested it- 
self in all things, and especially in the human mind, and most of all in 
Christ Jesus, we must have a far different opinion." 



LECTURE VI. 

Note I., p. 137. 
See above, Lecture IY. p. 104 and note 19. 

Note II., p. 138. 

Christliche Lehre von der Siinde, II. p. 156, third edition, (English Trans- 
lation, II. p. 126.) The doctrine that the Divine Essence is speculatively 
made known through Christ, is a common ground on which theologians 



Lect. VI. NOTES. 317 

of the most opposite schools have met, to diverge again into most adverse 
conclusions. It is substantially the opinion of Eunomius ; i and it has been 
maintained in modern times by Hegel and his disciple Marheineke, in a 
sense very different from that which is adopted by Miiller. See Hegel, 
Philosophie der Geschichte, Werke, IX. p. 19. Philosophie der Religion, 
WerJce, XII. p. 204, and Marheineke, Grundlehren der Christlichen Dogmatik, 
$69. 

Note III., p. 138. 

See L. Ancillon, in the Memoir es deV Academie de Berlin, quoted by Bar- 
tholmess, Histoire des Doctrines religieuses, I. p. 268. On the parallel be- 
tween the mystery of Causation and those of Christian doctrines, compare 
Magee on the Atonement, Note XIX. See also Mozley, Augustinian Doc- 
trine of Predestination, p. 19, and the review of the same work, by Professor 
Fraser, Essays in Philosophy, p. 274. 

Note IV., p. 138. 

Seven different theories of the causal nexus, and of the mode of our ap- 
prehension of it, are enumerated and refuted by Sir W. Hamilton, Discus- 
sions, p. 611. His own, which is the eighth, can hardly be regarded as 
more satisfactory. For he resolves the causal judgment itself into the ina- 
bility to conceive an absolute commencement of phenomena, and the con- 
sequent necessity of thinking that what appears to us under a new form 
had previously existed under others. But surely a cause is as much re- 
quired to account for the change from an old form to a new, as to account 
for an absolute beginning. On the defects of this theory I have remarked 
elsewhere. See Encyclopaedia Britannica, eighth edition, vol. XIV. p. 601. 
It has also been criticized by Dr. McCosh, Method of the Divine Government, 
p. 529, fourth edition; by Professor Fraser. Essays in Philosophy, p. 170 
sqq.; and by Mr. Calderwood, Philosophy of the Infinite, p. 139 sqq. 

Note V. p. 139. 

That Causation implies something more than invariable sequence, though 
what that something is we are unable to determine, is maintained, among 
others, by M. Cousin, in his eloquent Lectures on the Philosophy of Locke. 
" Solely because one phenomenon succeeds another, and succeeds it con- 
stantly, — is it the cause of it? Is this the whole idea, which you form to 
yourself, of cause? When you say, when you think that the fire is the 

l See Neander, vol. iv. p. 60, ed. Bohn. 

27* 



318 NOTES. Lect. VI. 

cause of the fluid state of the wax, I ask you, if you do not believe, if the 
whole human race do not believe, that there is in the fire a certain something, 
an unknown property, — the determination of which is no point in question 
here, — to which you refer the production of the fluid state of the wax?" 
Histoire de la Philosophie au XVIII*. siecle, Lecon xix. Engel speaks to 
the same effect in almost the same words. " In what we call, for example, 
force of attraction, of affinity, or of impulsion, the only thing known 
(that is to say, represented to the imagination and the senses) is the effect 
produced, namely, the bringing together of the two bodies attracted and 
attracting. No language has a word to express that certain something, 
(effort, conatus, nisus) which remains absolutely concealed, but which all 
minds necessarily conceive of as added to the phenomenal representa- 
tion."! Dr. McCosh {Method of the Divine Government, p. 525,) professes to 
discover this certain something, in a substance acting according to its powers or 
properties. But, apart from the conscious exercise of free will, we know 
nothing of power, or property, save as manifested in its effects. Compare 
Berkeley, Minute Philosopher, Dial. VII. § 9. Herder, Gott, Werke, VIII. 
p. 224. 

Note VI., p. 139. 

That the first idea of Causation is derived from the consciousness of the 
exercise of power in our own volitions, is established, after a hint from 
Locke,2 by Maine de Biran, and accepted by M. Cousin. 3 To explain the 
manner in which we transcend our own personal consciousness, and at- 
tribute a cause to all changes in the material world, the latter philosopher 
has recourse to the hypothesis of a necessary law of the reason, by virtue 
of which it disengages, in the fact of consciousness, the necessary element 
of causal relation from the contingent element of our personal production 
of this or that particular movement. This Law, the Principle of Causality, 
compels the reason to suppose a cause, whenever the senses present a 
new phenomenon. But this Principle of Causality, even granting it to 
be true as far as it goes, does not explain what the idea of a Cause, thus 
extended, contains as its constituent feature: it merely transcends per- 
sonal causation, and substitutes an unknown something in its room. We 
do not attribute to the fire a consciousness of its power to melt the wax : 

1 Memoires de VAcademie de Berlin, quoted by Maine de Biran, Nouvelles Con- 
siderations, p. 23. 

2 Essay, B. II. Ch. 21 §§ 4, 5. A similar view is taken by Jacobi, David Hume, 
oder Idealismus und Realismus, {Werke, II. p. 201.) 

3 See De Biran, Oeuvres Philosophiques, IV. p. 241, 273, Cousin, Cows de V His- 
toire de la Philosophie, Deuxieme Serie, L>e^on 19. Fragments Philosophiques, vol. 
IV. ; Preface de la Premiere Edition. 



Lect. VI. NOTES. 319 

and in denying consciousness, we deny the only positive conception of 
power which can be added to the mere juxtaposition of phenomena. The 
cause, in all sensible changes, thus remains a certain something. On this 
subject I have treated more at length in another place. See Prolegomena 
Logica, pp. 135, 309. 

And even wit b in the sphere of our own volitions, though we are imme- 
diately conscious of the exercise of power, yet the analysis of the concep- 
tion thus presented to us, carries us at once into the region of the incom- 
prehensible. The finite power of man, as an originating cause within his 
own sphere, seems to come into collision with the infinite power of God, 
as the originating Cause of all things. Finite power is itself created by 
and dependent upon God; yet, at the same time, it seems to be manifested 
as originating and independent. Power itself acts only on the solicitation 
of motives; and this raises the question, which is prior? does the motive 
bring about the state of the will which inclines to it ; or does the state of 
the will convert the coincident circumstances into motives? Am I moved 
to wfu, or do I will to be moved ? Here we are involved in the mystery of 
endless succession. On this mystery there are some able remarks in Mr. 
Mozley's Augustinian theory of Predestination, p. 2, and in Professor Fraser's 
Essays in Philosophy, p. 275. 

Note VII., p. 139. 

De Ordine, II. 18. Compare Ibid. II. 16. "of that Supreme God, who 
is better known by not knowing." 

Note VIII., p. 139. 
Enarratio in Psalmum LXXXV. 12. Compare De Trinitate, VIII. c. 2. 

Note IX., p. 139. 

F. Socinus, Tractatus de Deo, Christo, et Spiritu Sancto. ( Opera, 1656, vol. 
I. p. 811). "But even from that alone, that God is openly taught to be 
one, it can justly be concluded, that he can be neither three nor two. For 
the One and the Three, or the One and the Two are opposed to each 
other. So that if God be three or two, he cannot be one." — Priestley, 
Tracts in Controversy with Bishop Horsley, p. 78. "They are therefore both 
one and many in the same respect, viz., in each being perfect God. This is 
certainly as much a contradiction as to say that Peter, James, and John, 
having each of them every thing that is requisite to constitute a complete 
man, are yet, all together, not three men, but only one man" — F. W. New- 



320 NOTES. Lect. VI. 

man, Phases of Faith, p. 48. "If any one speaks of three men, all that he 
means is, ' three objects of thought, of whom each separately may be 
called man/ So also, all that could possibly be meant by three Gods, is 
* three objects of thought, of whom each separately may be called God.' 
To avow the last statement, as the Creed does, and yet repudiate Three 
Gods, is to object to the phrase, yet confess to the only meaning which 
the phrase can convey." 

Note X., p. 140. 

Schleiermacher (Christliche Glaube, § 171), has some objections against 
the Catholic Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, conceived in the thorough 
spirit of Rationalism. In the same spirit Strauss observes ( Glaubenslehre, 
I. p. 460), " Whoever has sworn to the Symbolurn Quicunque has forsworn 
the laws of human thought." The sarcasm comes inconsistently enough 
from a disciple of Hegel, whose entire philosophy is based on an abjura- 
tion of the laws of thought. In one respect, indeed, Hegel is right; 
namely, in maintaining that the laws of thought are not applicable to the 
Infinite. But the true conclusion from this concession is not, as the 
Hegelians maintain, that a philosophy can be constructed independently 
of those laws; but that the Infinite is not an object of human philosophy 
at all. 

Note XL, p. 141. 
Paradise Lost, B. II. 667. 

Note XII., p. 141. 

Compare Anselm, De Fide Trinitatis, c. 7. "But if he denies that three 

can be predicated of one, and one of three, let him allow that 

there is something in God, which his intellect cannot penetrate, and let 
him not compare the nature of God, which is above all things, free from 
all condition of place and time and composition of parts, with things, 
which are confined to place and time, or composed of parts ; but let him 
believe that there is something, in that nature, which cannot be in those 
things, and let him acquiesce in christian authority, and not dispute 
against it." 

Note XIII., p. 142. 

See the objections raised against this doctrine by Mr. F. W. Newman, 
Phases of Faith, p. 84. " The very form of our past participle {begotten)," 
he tells us, " is invented to indicate an event in the past time." The true 



Lect. VI. NOTES. 321 

difficulty is not grammatical, but metaphysical. If ordinary language is 
primarily accommodated to the ordinary laws of thought, it is a mere 
verbal quibble to press its literal application to the Infinite, which is 
above thought. 

Note XIV., p. 142. 

The parallel here pointed out may be exhibited more fully by consult- 
ing Bishop Pearson's Exposition of this Doctrine, On the Creed, Art. I., and 
the authorities cited in his notes. 

Note XV., p. 142. 

On this ground is established a profound and decisive criticism of 
Hegel's System, by Trendelenburg, Logische Untersuchungen, c. 2. " Pure 
being," he says, " is quiescence; so also is the Nothing (das Nichts); how 
is the active Becoming (active reality) the result of the union of two qui- 
escent conceptions ? " M. Bartholmess in like manner remarks, " In turn- 
ing thus the abstraction to reality, this system tacitly ascribes to abstract 
being virtues and qualities which belong only to a concrete and individual 
being; that is, to a simple being capable of spontaneous and deliberate 
action, of intelligence and of will. It accords all this to it, at the same 
time that it represents it, and with reason, as an impersonal being. This 
abstract being produces concrete beings, this impersonal being produces 
persons ; it produces the one and the other, because thus the system di- 
rects ! " Histoire des Doctrines Beligieuses, II p. 277. 

Note XVI., p. 143. 

Schelling, Bruno, p. 168. "In the Absolute, all is absolute; if, there- 
fore, the perfection of His Nature appears in the real as infinite Being, 
and in the ideal as infinite Knowing, the Being in the absolute is, even as 
the Knowing, absolute; and each, being absolute, has not, out of itself, 
an opposite in the other, but the absolute Knowing is the absolute Nature, 
and the absolute Nature the absolute Knowing." 



Note XVII., p. 143. 

Aquinas, Summa, P. I. Qu. XXXII. Art. 1. "It is impossible, by means 
of natural reason, to reach the knowledge of the Trinity of the Divine 
Persons. For it has been shown above, that a man can, by natural rea- 



322 NOTES. Lect. VI 

son, arrive at the knowledge of God, only from what is created 

But the creative power of God is common to the whole Trinity; whence 
it pertains to the unity of the essence, not to the distinction of the Per- 
sons. By natural reason, therefore, only those things can be known con- 
cerning God, which belong to the Unity of the Divine essence, not to 
the distinction of the Divine Persons." This wise and sound limitation 
should be borne in mind, as a testimony against that neoplatonizing spirit 
of modern times, which seeks to strengthen the evidence of the Christian 
Doctrine of the Trinity, by distorting it into conformity with the specula- 
tions of Heathen Philosophy. The Hegelian Theory of the Trinity is a 
remarkable instance of this kind. Indeed, Hegel himself expressly re- 
gards coincidence with neoplatonism as an evidence in favor of an ideal- 
ist interpretation of Christian doctrines. 1 A similar spirit occasionally 
appears in influential writers among ourselves. 



Note XVIII., p. 144. 

For the objection, see Catech. JRacov. De Persona Christ!, Cap. 1. (Ed. 
1609. p. 43.) " It is repugnant to sound reason. In the first place, because 
two substances, opposite in their properties, cannot unite so as to form 
one person; .... then, too, because two natures, each constituting a 
person, cannot come together so as to constitute one person." — Spinoza, 
JEpist. XXI. " As to the additional view, given by some churches, that 
God assumed human nature, I have expressly declared, that I know not 
what they say; nay, to confess the truth, they seem to me to talk no less 
absurdly than if any one should say that a circle has assumed the nature 
of a square." Similar objections are urged by F. W. Newman, The Soul, 
p. 116, and by Theodore Parker, Critical and Miscellaneous Writings, p. 320, 
Discourse of Matters pertaining to 'Religion, p. 234. 



Note XIX., p. 144. 

One half of this dilemma has been exhibited by Sir W. Hamilton, Dis- 
cussions, p. 609. sqq. It is strange however that this great thinker should 
not have seen that the second alternative is equally inconceivable; that it 
is as impossible to conceive the creation as a process of evolution from the 
being of the Creator, as it is to conceive it as a production out of nothing. 
This double impossibility is much more in harmony with the philosophy 
of the conditioned, than the hypothesis which Sir W. Hamilton adopts. 

1 Philosophie der Geschichte, Werke, IX. p. 402. 



Lect. VI. NOTES. 323 

Indeed, his admirable criticism of Cousin's theory (Discussions, p. 36,) 
contains in substance the same dilemma as that exhibited in the text. 
For some additional remarks on this point, see above, Lecture II. note 33. 

Note XX., p. 145. 
Pens&s, Partie II. Art. I. § 1. 

Note XXI., p. 147. 

Greg, Creed of Christendom, p. 248. sqq. Compare the cognate passages 
from other Authors, quoted above, Lecture I. note 21. 



Note XXII., p. 148. 

For some remarks connected with this and cognate theories, see above, 
Lecture I. notes 21, 22, 23, Lecture III. notes 16, 18. 



Note XXIII., p. 149. 

" For since in general it is one thing to understand the impossibility of a 
thing, and a far different thing not to understand its possibility ; so espec- 
ially in those matters of which we are utterly ignorant, such as those which 
are not exposed to sense, the things are by no means forthwith impossi- 
ble, the possibility of which we do not thoroughly understand. Therefore 
it does not become the philosopher to deny universally Divine efficiency 
in the created world, or to maintain as certain, that God Himself contrib- 
utes nothing (immediately) either to the consecutive order of natural 
things, — as for instance the keeping up of each part or species, embraced 
in a genus of animals or of plants, — or to moral changes, — as for in- 
stance, the improvement of the human soul, — or to assert that it is alto- 
gether impossible for a revelation or any other extraordinary event to be 
brought about by Divine agency." Storr, Annotationes qucedam Theolo- 
gical, p. 5. 

Note XXIY., p. 149. 

" For since the force and power of nature, is the very force and power 
of God, and its laws and rules are the very decrees of God, it is in general 
a thing to be believed, that the power of nature is infinite, and that its 
laws are so made, as to extend to all things which are conceived by the 



324 NOTES. LECT. VI. 

Divine mind. For, otherwise, what else is determined, than that God 
made nature so impotent, and appointed for it laws and rules so unpro- 
ductive, that he is often to come anew to its aid, if He will have it so 
preserved that things may succeed according to wish; a thing which I 
conceive to be indeed most foreign to reason." Spinoza, Tractatus Theo- 
logico-Politicus, cap. YI. — "The latter, indeed (Supernaturalists), assume 
that God governs human affairs in general by a natural order, and that 
when this natural order can no longer satisfy His will, He comes in with 
remedial aid by the working of miracles; the former (Rationalists) decide 
that God, from eternity, so wisely arranged that all things should follow in 
a continuous series, that the things which occurred many ages ago, pre- 
pared and brought about what is occurring now, and that there should 
be no need of certain miracles, as a kind of intercalations." Wegscheider, 
Instit. Theol. § 12. From an opposite point of view to that of Spinoza, 
Herbart arrives at a similar conclusion. " Religion requires the view, that 
He who, as Father, has made provision for men, now in deepest silence 
leaves the race to itself, as having no part in it; without trace of any such 
feeling as might be likened to human sympathy, and indeed to egotism." 1 
The simile of the calculating engine, acting by its own laws, is adduced 
by Mr. Babbage (Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, ch. 2), "to illustrate the 
distinction between a system to which the restoring hand of its contriver 
is applied, either frequently or at distant intervals, and one which had 
received at its first formation the impress of the will of its author, fore- 
seeing the varied but yet necessary laws of its action throughout the 
whole of its existence; " and to show " that that for which, after its origi- 
nal adjustment, no superintendence is acquired, displays far greater inge- 
nuity than that which demands, at every change in its law, the direct 
intervention of its contriver." Mr. Jowett, though rejecting the analogy 
of the machine, uses similar language : " The directing power that is able 
to foresee all things, and provide against them by simple and general 
rules, is a worthier image of the Divine intelligence than the handicrafts- 
man 'putting his hand to the hammer/ detaching and isolating portions 
of matter from the laws by which he has himself put them together." 2 

Note XXV., p. 149. 

" The reason why, among men, an artificer is justly esteemed so much 
the more skilful, as the machine of his composing will continue longer to 
move regularly without any further interposition of the workman, is 

1 Lehrbuch zur Einleitung in die Philosophie, § 155 ( Werke, I. p. 278). 

2 Epistles of St. Paul, vol II. p. 412. 



Lect. VI. NOTES. 325 

because the skill of all human artificers consists only in composing, ad- 
justing, or putting together certain movements, the principles of whose 

motion are altogether independent upon the artificer But with 

regard to God, the case is quite different; because He not only composes 
or puts things together, but is himself the Author and continual Preserver 
of their original forces or moving powers. And consequently it is not a 
diminution, but the true glory of his workmanship, that nothing is done 
without his continual government and inspection." Clarke, First Reply to 
Leibnitz, p. 15. 

Note XXVI., p. 150. 

" I do not believe," says Theodore Parker, " there ever was a miracle, 
or ever will be; every where I find law, — the constant mode of operation 
of the infinite God." — Some account of my Ministry , appended to Theism, 
Atheism, and the Popular. Theology, p. 263. Compare the same work, pp. 
113, 188; and Atkinson, Man's Nature and Development, p. 241. The state- 
ment is not at present true, even as regards the material world : it is false 
as regards the world of mind : and were it true in both, it would prove 
nothing regarding the " infinite God." For the conception of law is, to 
say the least, quite as finite as that of miraculous interposition. Professor 
Powell, in his latest work, though not absolutely rejecting miracles, yet 
adopts a tone which, compared with such passages as the above, is at 
least painfully suggestive. "It is now perceived by all inquiring minds, 
that the advance of true scientific principles, and the grand inductive con- 
clusions of universal and eternal law and order, are at once the basis of all 
rational theology, and give the death-blow to superstition." Christianity 
without Judaism, p. 11. 

Note XXVII., p. 150. 

This point has been treated by the author at greater length in the Pro- 
legomena Logica, p. 135, and in the article Metaphysics, in the eighth edition 
of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. XIV. p. 600. 

Note XXVIII., p. 152. 

See McCosh, Method of the Divine Government, pp. 162, 166. The quota- 
tations which the author brings forward in support of this remark, from 
Humboldt and Comte, are valuable as showing the concurrence of the 
highest scientific authorities as to the facts stated. The religious applica- 

28 



326 notes. Lect. VI. 

tion of these facts is Dr. McCosh's own, and constitutes one of the most 
instructive portions of his valuable work. The fact itself has been noticed 
and commented on with his usual sagacity by Bishop Butler, Analogy, 
Part II. c. 3. " Would it not have been thought highly improbable, that 
men should have been so much more capable of discovering, even to cer- 
tainty, the general laws of matter, and the magnitudes, paths, and revolu- 
tions of the heavenly bodies, than the occasions and cures of distempers, 
and many other things, in which human life seems so much more nearly 
concerned, than in astronomy ? " 



Note XXIX., p. 152. 

" There are domains of nature in which man's foresight is considerably 
extended and accurate, and other domains in which it is very limited, 
or very dim and confused. Again, there are departments of nature in 
which man's influence is considerable, and others which lie altogether be- 
yond his control, directly or indirectly. Now, on comparing these classes 
of objects, we find them to have a cross or converse relation to one another. 
Where man's foreknowledge is extensive, either he has no power, or his 
power is limited ; and where his power might be exerted, his foresight is 

contracted He can tell in what position a satellite of Saturn will be 

a hundred years after this present time, but he cannot say in what state 
his bodily health may be an hour hence We are now in circum- 
stances to discover the advantages arising from the mixture of uniformity 
and uncertainty in the operations of nature. Both serve most important 
ends in the government of God. The one renders nature steady and 
stable, the other active and accommodating. Without the certainty, man 
would waver as in a dream, and wander as in a trackless desert; without 
the unexpected changes, he would make his rounds like the gin-horse in 
its circuit, or the prisoner on his wheel. Were nature altogether capri- 
cious, man would likewise become altogether capricious, for he could have 
no motive to steadfast action: again, were nature altogether fixed, it 
would make man's character as cold and formal as itself." McCosh, 
Method of the Divine Government, pp. 172, 174 (fourth edition). 

Note XXX., p. 153. 

The solution usually given by Christian writers of the difficulty of 
reconciling the efficacy of prayer with the infinite power and wisdom of 
God, I cannot help regarding, while thoroughly sympathizing with the 
purpose of its advocates, as unsatisfactory. That solution may be given 



Lect. VI. NOTES. 327 

in the language of Euler. " When a christian addresses to God, at this 
present moment, a prayer worthy of being granted, we must not imagine 
that this prayer reaches now, for the first time, the knowledge of God. 
He has already heard that prayer from all eternity; and since this com- 
passionate Father has judged it worthy of being granted, He has arranged 
the world- expressly in favor of this prayer in such manner, that its ac- 
complishment may be a consequence of the natural course of events." 1 In 
other words, the prayer is foreseen and foreordained, as well as the an- 
swer. This solution appears to assume that the conception of law and 
necessity adequately represents the absolute nature of God, while that of 
contingence and special interposition is to be subordinated to it. The ar- 
rangements of God in the government of the world are fixed from all 
eternity, and if the prayer is part of those arrangements, it becomes a 
necessary act likewise. It is surely a more reverent, and probably a truer 
solution, to say that the conception of general law and that of special in- 
terposition are equally human. Neither probably represents, as a specu- 
lative truth, the absolute manner in which God works in His Providence; 
both are equally necessary, as regulative truths, to govern man's conduct 
in this life. In neither aspect are we warranted in making the one con- 
ception subordinate to the other. A similar objection may be urged 
against the theory which represents a miracle as the possible manifesta- 
tion of a higher and unknown law. There is nothing in the conception of 
law which entitles it to this preeminence over other human modes of repre- 
sentation. 

Note XXXI., p. 153. 

Kant, though he attaches no value to miracles as evidences of a moral 
religion, yet distinctly allows that there is no sufficient reason for denying 
their possibility as facts or their utility at certain periods of the history of 
religion. 2 This moderation is not imitated by his disciple, Wegscheider, 
who says : " The belief in a supernatural and miraculous, and that too, an 
immediate revelation of God seems not well reconcilable with the ideas of 
a God eternal, always constant to Himself, omnipotent, omniscient and 
most wise." 3 Strauss, in like manner, assumes that the absolute cause 
never disturbs the chain of secondary causes by arbitrary acts of interpo- 
sition ; and therefore lays it down as a canon, that whatever is miracu- 
lous is unhistorical.4 

1 Lettres d une. Princesse (P Allemagne, vol. I. p. 357, ed. Cournot. Compare 
McCosh, Method of the Divine Government, p 222. 

2 Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunfl, p. 99, edit. Rosenkranz. 

3 Instit. Theol. § 12. 

4 Leben Jesu, § 16. 



328 NOTES. Lect. YII. 



Note XXXIL, p. 154. 

See, on the one side, Babbage, Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, ch. 8; Hitch- 
cock, Religion of Geology, p. 290. The same view is also suggested as 
probable by Butler, Analogy, Part II. ch. 4. On the other side, as regards 
the limitations within which the idea of law should be applied to the course 
of God's Providence, see McCosh, Method of Divine Government, p. 155. 
Kant, Religion innerhalb, u. s. w. p. 102, maintains, with reason, that from 
a human point of view, a law of miracles is unattainable. 



Note XXXIII., p. 198. 
Sir William Hamilton, Discussions, p. 625. 



LECTURE VII. 

Note I., p. 158. 

The Moral and Religious Philosophy of Kant, which is here referred 
to, is chiefly contained in his Metaphysik der Sitten, first published in 1785, 
his Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, in 1788, and his Religion innerhalb der 
Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, in 1793. For Kant's influence on the ration- 
alist theology of Germany, see Rosenkranz, Geschichte der Kanfschen Phi- 
losophic, p. 323. sqq. Amand Saintes, Histoire du Rationalisme en Alle- 
magne, L. II. ch. xi. Rose, State of Protestantism in Germany, p. 183 (2nd 
edition), Kahnis, History of German Protestantism, pp. 88, 167 (Meyer's 
Translation). 

Note II., p. 159. 

See Metaphysik der Sitten, pp. 5, 31, 52, 87, 92; Kritik der praktischen 
Vernunft, p. 224 (ed. Rosenkranz). 

Note III., p. 159. 

A similar view of the superiority of the moral consciousness over other 
phenomena of the human mind, as regards absolute certainty, seems to 



Lect. VII. NOTES. 329 

be held by Mr. Jowett. In reference to certain doubts connected with the 
Doctrine of the Atonement, he observes, " It is not the pride of human 
reason which suggests these questions', but the moral sense which He him- 
self has implanted in the breast of each one of us." i It is difficult to see 
the force of the antithesis here suggested. The "moral sense" is not 
more the gift of God than the " human reason ; " and the decisions of the 
former, to be represented in consciousness at all, require the cooperation 
of the latter. Even as regards our own personal acts, the intellectual con- 
ception must be united with the moral sense in passing judgment; and in 
all general theories concerning the moral nature of God or of man, the 
rational faculty will necessarily have the larger share. 

Note IV., p. 159. 

Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 631. ed. Rosenkranz. Metaphysik der Sit- 
ten, p. 31. Religion innerhalb u. s. w. p. 123. 



Religion u. s. w. p. 123. 



Ibid. pp. 122, 184. 



Note V., p. 159. 



Note VI., p. 159. 



Note VII., p. 159. 
Ibid. pp. 123, 133. Compare Streit der Facultdten, p. 304. 

Note VIII., p. 160. 
See above, Lecture III, p. 74. 



Note IX., p. 161. 

On the existence of necessary truths in morals, comparable to those of 
mathematics, see Reid, Intellectual Powers, Essay VI. ch. 6 (pp. 453, 454. 
ed. Hamilton). 

1 Epistles of St. Paul, Vol. II. p. 468. 
28* 



330 NOTES. LECT. VII. 



Note X., p. 162. 

Compare Jacobi, An Fichte, Werke, III. pp. 35, 37. "Just as certainly 
as I possess reason, so certainly do I not possess along with it the perfec- 
tion of life, I do not possess the fulness of the good and the true; and just 
as certainly as I do not possess this, and know it, just so certainly do I 
know there is a higher Being, and in Him I have my origin I ac- 
knowledge, then, that I do not know the Good in itself, the True in itself, 
also that I have only a remote foreboding of it." That the moral provi- 
dence of God cannot be judged by the same standard as the actions of 
men, see Leibnitz, Theodicee, De la Conformity etc. § 32 (Opera, ed. Erd- 
mann, p. 489). 

Note XL, p. 163. 

" Wherefore, inasmuch as our actions are conversant about things beset 
with many circumstances, which cause men of sundry wits to be also of 
sundry judgments concerning that which ought to be done; requisite it 
cannot but seem the rule of divine law should herein help our imbecility, 
that we might the more infallibly, understand what is good and what evil. 
The first principles of the Law of Nature are easy; hard it were to find 
men ignorant of them. But concerning the duty which Nature's law 
doth require at the hands of men, in a number of things particular, so far 
hath the natural understanding even of sundry whole nations been dark- 
ened, that they have not discerned, no not gross iniquity to be sin. — 
Hooker, B. P., I. xii. 2. 

Note XII., p. 163. 

This corresponds to the distinction drawn by Leibnitz, between eternal 
and positive truths of the reason. See Theodicee, Discours de la Conformite', 
etc. § 2 (Opera, Erdmann, p. 480). The latter class of truths, he allows, 
may be subservient to Faith, and even opposed by it, but not the former. 



Note XIIL, p. 165. 

That it is impossible to conceive the Divine Will as absolutely indiffer- 
ent, is shown by Miiller, Christliche Lehre von der Sunde, I. p. 128. But on 
the other hand, we are equally unable to conceive it as necessarily deter- 
mined by the laws of the Divine Nature. We cannot therefore conceive 
absolute morality either as dependent on, or as independent of, the Will of 
God. In other words, we are unable to conceive absolute morality at all. 



Lect. VII. NOTES. 831 

Note XIV., p. 166. 
See above, Lecture I, note 14. 

Note XV., p. 166. 

"Sin contains its own retributive penalty, as surely and as naturally as 

the acorn contains the oak It is ordained to follow guilt by God — 

not as a Judge, but as the Creator and Legislator of the universe. . . . We 
ean be redeemed from the punishment of sin only by being redeemed 
from its commission. Neither can there be any such thing as vicarious 
atonement or punishment. ... If the foregoing reflections are sound, the 
awful, yet wholesome conviction presses on our minds, that there can be no 
forgiveness of sms." — Greg, Creed of Christendom, p. 265. "I believe God 
is a just God, rewarding and punishing us exactly as we act well or ill. I 
believe that such reward and punishment follow necessarily from His will 
as revealed in natural law, as well as in the Bible. I believe that as the 
highest justice is the highest mercy, so He is a merciful God. That the 
guilty should suffer the measure of penalty which their guilt has incurred, 
is justice." — Froude, Nemesis of Faith, p. 69. 

Note XVL, p. 166. 
See above, Lecture I, note 13. 

Note XVII., p. 166. 
See above, Lecture I, note 12. 

Note XVni., p. 166. 

See Newman, Phases of Faith, p. 8. Compare Wegscheider, Instit. 
Theoh § 141. 

Note XIX., p. 167. 

Mr. Rigg justly observes of the theory of immediate forgiveness, as sub- 
stituted for the Christian Atonement, " Let all men be told that ' God can- 
not be angry with any/ and that whatever may have been a man's sins, 
if he will but repent, there is no hindrance to God's freely forgiving him 
all, without the infliction of any punishment whatever, and without the 



332 NOTES. Lect. vn. 

need of any atonement or intercession. What would be the effect of such 
a proclamation ? Would it make sin appear 'exceeding sinful?' Would 
it enhance our idea of the holiness of God ? Would it not make sin ap- 
pear a light and trivial thing, tolerated too easily by a ' good-natured " 
God, to be held as of much account by man ? " 1 Wegscheider indeed 
actually urges this argument against the Christian doctrine, which it suits 
his purpose to represent as a scheme of unconditional forgiveness. " Ex- 
perience teaches, that the belief, that even the most wicked man can 
easily obtain absolute remission of sins, has always done the greatest det- 
riment to true virtue and integrity." — Instit. Theol. § 140. 



Note XX., p. 167. 

Such is, in fact, the theory of Kant. See Religion innerhalb der Grenzen 
der blossen Vernunft, p. 84. He does not, however, carry his principle con- 
sistently out, but admits a kind of vicarious suffering in a symbolical 
sense ; the penitent being morally a different individual from the sinner. 
Even this metaphorical conceit is utterly out of place according to the 
main principles of his system. 



Note XXL, p. 168. 

Some excellent remarks on this point will be found in McCosh's Method 
of the Divine Government, p. 475 (4th edition). 



Note XXIL, p. 168. 

"This natural indignation is generally moderate and low enough in 
mankind, in each particular man, when the injury which excites it doth 
not affect himself, or one whom he considers as himself. Therefore the 
precepts to forgive and to love our enemies, do not relate to that general 
indignation against injury and the authors of it, but to this feeling, or 
resentment, when raised by private or personal injury." — Butler, Sermon 
IX, On Forgiveness of Injuries. 



Note XXIII., p. 169. 

Thus Mr. Froude exclaims, "He! to have created mankind liable to fail 
— to have laid them in the way of a temptation under which He knew 

1 Modern Anglican Theology, p. 317. 



Lect. VII. NOTES. 333 

they would fall, and then curse them and all who were to come of them, 
and all the world for their sakes ! " — Nemesis of Faith , p. 11. This author 
omits the whole doctrine of the redemption, and treats the fall and the 
curse as if they were the sole manner of God's dealing with sinners. His 
objection, stripped of its violent language, is but one form of the univer- 
sal riddle — the existence of Evil. A similar objection is urged by Mr. 
Parker, Theism, Atheism, and the Popular Theology, p. 64: and by Mr. 
Atkinson, Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and Development, pp. 173, 
174. 

Note XXIV., p. 169. 

Aristotle Fth. Nic. V. 10. " For of a thing, which is not limited, the 
rule is also unlimited, like the plumb-rule of Lesbian house-building, 
changing according to the form of the stone, and not remaining the same 
rule." 

Note XXV., p. 169. 

On this spirit of universal criticism, Augustine remarks: "But they 
are foolish, who say, 'Could not the wisdom of God otherwise deliver 
men, than by assuming human nature, and being born of a woman, and 
suffering all those things from sinners ? ' To whom, we say He could, but 
if He were to do otherwise, He would in like manner be displeasing to 
your folly." — De Agone Christiano, c. 11. 

The following passage from the Eclipse of Faith, p. 125, is an excellent 
statement of the versatility of the " moral reason/' or " spiritual insight," 
when set up as a criterion of religious truth. " Even as to that funda- 
mental position, — the existence of a Being of unlimited power and wis- 
dom (as to his unlimited goodness, I believe that nothing but an external 
revelation can absolutely certify us), I feel that I am much more indebted 
to those inferences from design, which these writers make so light of, than 
to any clearness in the imperfect intuition ; for if I found — and surely this 
is the true test — the traces of design less conspicuous in the external 
world, confusion there as in the moral, and in both greater than is now 
found in either, I extremely doubt whether the faintest surmise of such a 
Being would have suggested itself to me. But be that as it may; as to 
their other cardinal sentiments, — the nature of my relations to this Being 
— his placability if offended, — the terms of forgiveness, if any, — whether, 
as these gentlemen affirm, he is accessible to all, without any atonement 
or mediator : — as to all this, I solemnly declare, that apart from external 
instruction, I cannot by interrogating my racked spirit, catch even a mur- 



334 NOTES. Lect. VII. 

tnur. That it must be faint indeed, in other men — so faint as to render the 
pretensions of the certitude of the internal revelation, and its indepen- 
dence of all external revelation, perfectly preposterous — I infer from this, 
«— that they have, for the most part, arrived at diametrically opposite con- 
clusions from those of these interpreters of the spiritual revelation. As 
to the articles, indeed, of man's immortality and a future state, it would 
be truly difficult for my ' spiritual insight ' to verify theirs ; for, according 
to Mr. Parker, his ' insight ' affirms that man is immortal, and Mr. New- 
man's ' insight ' declares nothing about the matter! Nor is my conscious- 
ness, so far as I can trace it, mine only. This painful uncertainty has 
been the confession of multitudes of far greater minds; they have been 
so far from contending that we have naturally a clear utterance on these 
great questions, that they have acknowledged the necessity of an external 
revelation; and mankind in general, so far from thinking or feeling such 
light superfluous, have been constantly gaping after it, and adopted almost 
any thing that but bore the name. 
What, then, am I to think of this all-sufficient revelation from within ? " 



Note XXVI., p. 169. 

For the Socinian theory of a limited foreknowledge in God, see Miiller, 
Christliche Lehre von der Sunde, II. pp. 276, 288; Davison, Discourses on 
Prophecy, pp. 360, 367. A similar view is held by Rothe, Theol. Ethik, 
Vol. I. p. 118; and by Drobisch, Grundlehren der Religionsphilosophie, p. 209. 
For the opposite necessitarian theory, see Calvin, Inst. L. II. ch. 4. § 6; 
Edwards, On the Freedom of the Will, Part II. Sect. xii. quoted above, 
Lect. II. note 7 ; and in the authorities cited by Wegscheider, Inst. Theol., 
§65. 



Note XXVII., p. 169. 

That God's knowledge is not properly foreknowledge, as not being subject 
to the law of time, is maintained by Augustine, T>e Civ. Dei, XI. 21, De 
Div. Quoest ad Simpl. L. II. Qu. 2. § 2, and by Boethius, De ConsoL Phil. 
L. V. Pr. 3-6. A similar view is taken by Wegscheider, Inst. Theol § 65. 
As a speculative theory, this view is as untenable as the opposite hypo- 
thesis of an absolute foreknowledge and predestination. We can only say 
that we do not know that the Divine Consciousness is subject to the law 
of succession ; not that we know that it is not. As a means of saving the 
infinity of God's knowledge, consistently with the free agency of man, the 
hypothesis becomes unnecessary, the instant we admit that the infinite is 



Lect. VII. NOTES. 83£ 

not an object of human conception at all. If this is once conceded, we 
need no hypothesis to reconcile truths which we cannot certainly know to 
be in antagonism to each other. We cannot assume the simultaneity of 
the divine consciousness ; for we know nothing of the infinite, either in 
itself or in its relation to time. Nor, on the other hand, could we deduce 
the necessity of human actions from the fact of God's foreknowledge, 
even if the latter could be assumed as absolutely true; for we know not 
whether the conception of necessity itself implies a divine reality, or 
merely a human mode of representation. 

Note XXVIII., p. 170. 

Wegscheider (Inst. Theol. § 50) denies the possibility of prophecy, on the 
ground that a prediction of human events is destructive of freedom. In 
this he follows Kant, Anthropologic, § 35. 

Note XXIX., p. 170. 

" As it is certain that prescience does not destroy the liberty of man's 
will, or impose any necessity upon it, men's actions being not therefore 
future, because they are foreknown, but therefore foreknown, because 
future; and were a thing never so contingent, yet upon supposition that it 
will be done, it must needs have been future from all eternity : so is it 
extreme arrogance for men, because themselves can naturally foreknow 
nothing but by some causes antecedent, as an eclipse of the sun or moon, 
therefore to presume to measure the knowledge of God Almighty according 
to the same scantling, and to deny him the prescience of human actions, 
not considering that, as his nature is incomprehensible, so his knowledge 
may be well looked upon by us as such too ; that which is past our finding 
out, and too wonderful for us." — Cudworth, Intellectual System, ch. V. 
(Vol. III. p. 19. ed. Harrison). " We may be unable to conceive how a 
thing not necessary in its nature can be foreknown — for our foreknowl- 
edge is in general limited by that circumstance, and is more or less per- 
fect in proportion to the fixed or necessary nature of the things we con- 
template : . . . but to subject the knowledge of God to any such limitation 
is surely absurd and unphilosophical, as well as impious." — Copleston, 
Enquiry into the Doctrines of Necessity and Predestination , p. 46. 

Note XXX., p. 170. 

Origen. apud Euseb. Prozp. Evang. VI. 11. 36. And if we must say, that 
foreknowledge is not the cause of events, we will say what, though more 



336 NOTES. Lect. VII. 

paradoxical, is yet true, that the fact that the thing is to be, is the cause 
of its foreknowledge." — Leibnitz, Theodicee, § 37. "It is very easy to 
decide, that foreknowledge in itself adds nothing to the determination 
of the reality of future events, except that this determination is known; a 
thing which does not at all increase the determination, or the futurition 
(as it is called) of these events." — Clarke, Demonstration of the Being and 
Attributes of God, p. 96. " The certainty of Foreknowledge does not 
cause the certainty of things, but is itself founded on the reality of their 
existence. Whatever now is, it is cei'tain that it is; and it was yester- 
day and from eternity as certainly true, that the thing would be to-day, as 
'tis now certain that it is. This certainty of events is equally the same, 
whether it is supposed that the thing could be foreknown or not." 



Note XXXI., p. 171. 
See above, Lecture VI, p. 150, and note 27. 



Note XXXII., p. 172. 

This question is discussed at some length by Euler, Lettres d une Prin- 
cesse d'Allemagne, Vol. I. p. 360. ed., Cournot. 



Note XXXIIL, p. 172. 

"Sins are finite; between the finite and the infinite there is no propor- 
tion; therefore punishments also ought to be finite." — Sonerus apud Leib- 
nitz. Prcef 1 The same argument is used by Blasche, Philosophische Unster- 
blichkeitlehre, § 4; as well as by Mr. Newman, Phases of Faith, p. 78, and 
by Mr. Froude, Nemesis of Faith, p. 17. The latter however entirely mis- 
represents Leibnitz's reply to the objection. 



Note XXXIV, p. 173. 

Thus Leibnitz replies to the objection of Sonerus: "Even, therefore, if 
we should concede that no sin is of itself infinite, yet it can with truth be 
said, that the sins of the damned are infinite in number; for they persist 
in sinning, through all eternity." The same argument is repeated in the 

1 Published by Lessing, in his tract, Leibnitz ion den ewigen Strafen (Lessing's 
Schriften,ed. Lachmann, Vol. IX p. 154). 



Lfxt. VII. NOTES. 337 

Theodice'e, §§ 74, 133, 266. The reply which Mr. Froudc attributes to Leib- 
nitz, namely, that sin against an Infinite Being contracts a character of 
infinity, is merely noticed by him as " la raison vulgaire," urged, among 
others, by Ursinus. With Leibnitz's language may be compared that of 
Miiller; "And since experience shows, that men really resist the holiest 
work of divine love, why should it be thought impossible, that this resist- 
ance against God may also, on the other side this earthly life, be ever 
again renewed, and thus carried forward into endless periods?" — Christ- 
liche Lehre von der Siinde, II. p. 601. 



Note XXXV., p. 173. 

Thus Mr. Newman says, " I saw that the current orthodoxy made Satan 
eternal conqueror over Christ. In vain does the Son of God come from 
heaven and take human flesh and die on the cross. In spite of him the 
devil carries off to hell the vast majority of mankind, in whom not misery 
only, but Sin, is triumphant for ever and ever." l And Mr. Parker, to the 
same effect, remarks, "I can never believe that Evil is a finality with 
God." 2 The remarks of Miiller, in answer to similar theories, are worthy 
of consideration. " It seems incredible, according to what we have said, 
that the idea of the world is to reach its complete development with an 
unsettled discord, that opposition to the Divine will is to maintain itself in 
the will of any creature whatsoever. This difficulty, however, is solved 
by a correct conception of punishment. The opposition to the Divine will 
does not hold its ground, but is absolutely overcome, when the entire con- 
dition of the beings, in whom it is, is a penal condition; so that evil, being 
in restraint, is no longer able to disturb the pure harmony of the world 
glorified and transformed to the kingdom of God." 3 



Note XXXVI., p. 173. 

See a short treatise by Kant, Ueber das Misslingen alter PMlosophischen 
Versuche in der Theodice'e ( Werke, VII. p. 385). Eor a more detailed ac- 
count of various theories, see Miiller, Christliche Lehre von der Siinde, B. II. 
An able review of the difficulties of the question will be found in Mr. 
Mozley's Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, p. 262 seq. 



1 Phases of Faith, p. 78. 

2 Some Account of my Ministry. See Theism, Atheism, etc, p. 261. 

3 Christliche Lehre von der Siinde. II. p. 699. 

29 



838 NOTES. Lect. VII. 

Note XXXVIL, p. 173. 

The theory which represents evil as a privation or a negation — a theory 
adopted by theologians and philosophers of almost every shade of opinion, 
in order to reconcile the goodness of God with the apparent permission 
of sin, can only be classed among the numerous necessarily fruitless at- 
tempts of metaphysicians to explain the primary facts of consciousness, 
by the arbitrary assumption of a principle of which we are not and can- 
not be conscious, and of whose truth or falsehood we have therefore no 
possible guarantee. Moral evil, in the only form in which we are con- 
scious of it, appears as the direct transgression of a law whose obligation 
we feel within us ; and thus manifested, it is an act as real and as positive 
as any performed in the most rigid compliance with that law. And this is 
the utmost point to which human research can penetrate. "Whether, in 
some absolute mode of existence, out of all relation to human conscious- 
ness, the phenomenon of moral evil is ultimately dependent on the addi- 
tion or the subtraction of some causative principle, is a question the solu- 
tion of which is beyond consciousness, and therefore beyond philosophy. 
To us, as moral agents, capable of right and wrong acts, evil is a reality, 
and its consequences are a reality. What may be the nature of the cause 
which produces this unquestionably real fact of human consciousness, is 
a mystery which God has not revealed, and which man cannot discover. 

Note XXXVIII., p. 175. 

Analogy, Part II. ch. 5. In another significant passage (Part 1. ch. 2), 
Butler exhibits the argument from analogy as bearing on the final char- 
acter of punishment. " Though after men have been guilty of folly and 
extravagance up to a certain degree, it is often in their power, for instance, 
to retrieve their affairs, to recover their health and character; at least in 
good measure; yet real reformation is, in many cases, of no avail at all 
towards preventing the miseries, poverty, sickness, infamy, naturally 
annexed to folly and extravagance exceeding that degree. ... So that 
many natural punishments are final to him who incurs them, if consid- 
ered only in his temporal capacity." — Compare Bishop Browne, Procedure 
of the Understanding, p. 351. " The difficulty in that question, What pro- 
portion endless torments can bear to momentary sins ? is quite removed, by 
considering that the punishments denounced and threatened are not in 
themselves sanctions entirely arbitrary, as it is in punishments annexed 
to human laws; but they are withal so many previous warnings or declar- 
ations of the inevitable consequence and natural tendency of Sin in itself, 
to render us miserable in another world." 



Lect. VII. NOTES. 339 



Note XXXIX., p. 176. 

Kant (Religion, n. s. ic, Werke, X. p. 45) objects to the doctrine of in- 
herited corruption, on the ground that a man cannot be responsible for any 
but his own acts. The objection is carried out more fully by Wegscheider, 
who says, " Neither can the goodness of God allow, that b} r one man's sin, 
universal human nature be corrupted and depraved; nor can His wisdom 
suffer, that God's work, furnished from the beginning with surpassing 
endowments, be transformed in a little while, for the slightest cause, to 
quite another and a worse condition." — Inst. Theol. § 117. The learned 
critic does not seem to be aware that the principle of one of these argu- 
ments exactly annihilates that of the other; for if we concede to the first, 
that every man is born in the state of pristine innocence, we must admit, 
in opposition to the second, that God's work is destroyed by slight causes, 
not once only, but millions of times, in every man that sins. The only 
other supposition possible is, that sin itself is part of God's purpose — in 
which case we need not trouble ourselves to establish any argument on 
the hypothesis of the divine wisdom or benevolence. 



Note XL., p. 176. 

Aristotle, Eth. Nic. VII. 2. " But one may be at a loss to understand 
how a person, who takes a right estimate of things, can live without 
moral self-control. Some, therefore, say that a person, who had knowl- 
edge, could not live in such manner; for (as Socrates thought), if knowl- 
edge were within him, he could not be controlled by something else, and 
dragged about by it, like a slave." 

Note XLL, p. 176. 

For sundry rationalist objections to the doctrine of Justification by 
Faith, see AVegscheider, § 154, 155. He declares the whole doctrine to be 
the result of the anthropopaihic notions of a rude age. 

Note XLIL, p. 177. 

" Our notion of freedom does not, it is true, exclude motives of conscious 
action; but motives are not compulsory, but are always effectual only 
through the will; motives for the human will can therefore proceed 
from God, without man's being thereby forced, without his losing his free- 
dom, and becoming a blind instrument of the higher power." — Drobisch, 



340 NOTES. Lect. VII. 

Grundlehren der Religionsphilosophie, p. 272. In like manner, Mr. Mozley, 
in his learned and philosophical work on the Augustinian Doctrine of Pre- 
destination, truly says, " What we have to consider in this question, is 
not what is the abstract idea of freewill, but what is the freewill which we 
really and actually have. This actual freewill, we find, is not a simple 
but a complex thing ; exhibiting oppositions and inconsistencies; appear- 
ing on the one side to be a power of doing anything to which there is no 
physical hindrance, on the other side to be a restricted faculty" (p. 102). 
Neither the Pelagian theory on the one side, nor the Augustinian on the 
other, took sufficient account of the actual condition of the human will in 
relation to external influences. The question was argued as if the relation 
of divine grace to human volition must consist wholly in activity on the 
one side and passivity on the other; — in the will of its own motion ac- 
cepting the grace, or the grace by its irresistible force overpowering the 
will. The controversy thus becomes precisely analogous to the philosoph- 
ical dispute between the advocates of freewill and determinism; the one 
proceeding on the assumption of an absolute indifference of the will; the 
other maintaining its necessary determination by motives. 

Mr. Mozley has thrown considerable light on the true bearings of the 
predestinarian controversy; and his work is especially valuable as vindica- 
ting the supreme right of Scripture to be accepted in all its statements, in- 
stead of being mutilated to suit the demands of human logic. But it can- 
not be denied that his own theory, however satisfactory in this respect, 
leaves a painful void on the philosophical side, and apparently vindicates 
the authority of revelation by the sacrifice of the laws of human thought. 
He maintains that where our conception of an object is indistinct, contra- 
dictory propositions may be accepted as both equally true ; and he carries 
this theory so far as to assert of the rival doctrines of Pelagius and Au- 
gustine, " Both these positions are true, if held together, and both false, if 
held apart." 1 

Should we not rather say that the very indistinctness of conception pre- 
vents the existence of any contradiction at all? I can only know two 
ideas to be contradictory by the distinct conception of both ; and, where 

l P. 77. To the same effect are his criticisms on Aquinas, p. 260, in which he 
says, "The will as an original spring of action is irreconcilable with the Divine 
Power, a second first cause in nature being inconsistent with there being only one 
First Cause." This assumes that we have a sufficient conception of the nature of 
Divine Power and of the action of a First Cause; an assumption which the 
author himself in another passage repudiates, acknowledging that " As an un- 
known premiss, the Divine Power is no contradiction to the fact of evil ; for we 
must know what a truth is before we see a contradiction in it to another truth" 
(p. 276). This latter admission, consistently carried out, would have consider- 
ably modified the author's whole theory. 



Lect. VII. NOTES. 341 

6iich a conception is impossible, there is no evidence of contradiction. 
The actual declarations of Scripture, so far as they deal with matters 
above human comprehension, are not in themselves contradictory to the 
facts of consciousness; they are only made so by arbitrary interpretation. 
It is nowhere said in Scripture that God so predestines man as to take 
from him all power of acting by his own will : — this is an inference from 
the supposed nature of predestination; an inference which, if our concep- 
tion of predestination is indistinct, we have no right to make. Man can- 
not foreknow unless the event is certain ; nor predestine without coercing 
the result. Here there is a contradiction between freewill and predestina- 
tion. But we cannot transfer the same contradiction to Theology, without 
assuming that God's knowledge and acts are subject to the same condi- 
tions as man's. 

The contradictory propositions which Mr. Mozley exhibits, as equally 
guaranteed by consciousness, are in reality by no means homogeneous. 
In each pair of contradictories, we have a limited and individual fact of 
immediate perception, — such as the power of originating an action, — op- 
posed to a universal maxim, not perceived immediately, but based on 
some process of general thought, — such as that every event must have a 
cause. To establish these two as contradictory of each other, it should be 
shown that in every single act we have a direct consciousness of being 
coerced, as well as of being free; and that we can gather from each fact 
a clear and distinct conception. But this is by no means the case. The 
principle of causality, whatever may be its true import and extent, is not 
derived from the immediate consciousness of our volition being deter- 
mined by antecedent causes ; and therefore it may not be applied to 
human actions, until, from an analysis of the mode in which this maxim 
is gained, it can be distinctly shown that these are included under it. 1 

By applying to Mr. Mozley's theory the principles advanced in the pre- 
ceding Lectures, it may, I believe, be shown that, in every case, the con- 
tradiction is not real, but apparent; and that it arises from a vain attempt 
to transcend the limits of human thought. 



Note XLIII., p. 177. 

Analogy, Introduction, p. 10. 

1 1 am happy to be able to refer, in support of this view, to the able criticism of 
Professor Fraser, in his review of Mr. Mozley's work. "The coexistence," he 
says, " of a belief in causality with a belief in moral agency, is indeed incom- 
prehensible; but is it so because the two beliefs are known to be contradictory, 
and not rather because causality and Divine Power cannot be fathomed by finite 
intelligence?" — Essays in Philosophy, p. 271. 

29* 



342 NOTES. Lect. YIU. 

LECTURE VIII. 

Note I., p. 182. 
F. W. Newman, Phases of Faith, p. 199; Beply to the Eclipse of Faith, p. 



11. 



Note II., p. 182. 



" Christianity itself has thus practically confessed, what is theoretically 
^ clear, that an authoritative external revelation of moral and spiritual truth 
is essentially impossible to man." — F. W. Newman, The Soul, p. 59. 

Note III., p. 183. 

"In teaching about God and Christ, lay aside the wisdom of the wise; 
forswear History and all its apparatus; hold communion with the Father 
and the Son in the Spirit; from this communion learn all that is essential 
to the Gospel, and still (if possible) retain every proposition which Paul 
believed and taught. Propose them to the faith of others, to be tested by 
inward and spiritual evidence only ; and you will at least be in the true apos- 
tolic track."— F. W. Newman, The Soul, p. 250. 

Note IV., p. 183. 

"This question of miracles, whether true or false, is of no religious sig- 
nificance. When Mr. Locke said the doctrine proved the miracles, not 
the miracles the doctrine, he admitted their worthlessness. They can be 
useful only to such as deny our internal power of discerning truth." — Par- 
ker, Discourse of matters pertaining to Heligion, p. 170. Pascal, with far 
sounder judgment, says, on the other hand, "we must judge of the doc- 
trine by the miracles, we must judge of miracles by the doctrine. The 
doctrine shows what the miracles are, and the miracles show what the 

doctrine is. All this is true, and not contradictory Jesus Christ 

cured the man who was born blind, and did many other miracles on the 
sabbath day; whereby he blinded the Pharisees, who said, that it was 

necessary to judge of miracles by the doctrine The Pharisees 

said: This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. The 
others said : How can a man that is a sinner, do such miracles ? Which is the 



Lect. VIE notes. 343 

clearer?" 1 In like manner Clarke observes, "'Tis indeed the miracles 
only, that prove the doctrine; and not the doctrine that proves the mira- 
acles. But then in order to this end, that the miracles may prove the doc- 
trine, 'tis always necessary to be first supposed that the doctrine be such 
as is in its nature capable of being proved by miracles. The doctrine must 
be in itself possible and capable to be proved, and then miracles will prove it 
to be actually and certainly true. 2 The judicious remarks of Dean Trench 
are to the same effect, " When we object to the use often made of these 
works, it is only because they have been forcibly severed from the whole 
complex of Christ's life and doctrine, and presented to the contemplation 
of men apart from these; it is only because, when on his head are 'many 
crowns/ one only has been singled out in proof that He is King of kings, 
and Lord of lords. The miracles have been spoken of as though they 
borrowed nothing from the truths which they confirmed, but those truths 
everything from the miracles by which they were confirmed; when, in- 
deed, the true relation is one of mutual interdependence, the miracles 
proving the doctrines, and the doctrines approving the miracles, and both 
held together for us in a blessed unity, in the person of Him who spake 
the words and did the works, and through the impress of highest holiness 
and of absolute truth and goodness, which that person leaves stamped on 
our souls ; — so that it may be more truly said that we believe the mira- 
cles for Christ's sake, than Christ for the miracles' sake." 3 

Note V., p. 183. 

Foxton, Popular Christianity, p. 105. On the other hand, the profound 
author of the Restoration of Belief, with a far juster estimate of the value 
of evidence, observes, "Remove the supernatural from the Gospels, or, in 
other words, reduce the evangelical histories, by aid of some unintelligible 
hypothesis (German-born), to the level of an inane jumble of credulity, 
extravagance, and myth-power (whatever this may be), and then Chris- 
tianity will go to its place, as to any effective value, in relation to human- 
izing and benevolent influences and enterprises ; — a place, say, a few de- 
grees above the level of some passages in Epictetus and M. Aurelius. . . . 

1 Pensees, Partie II. Art. xvi. § i. 5, 10. Whatever may be thought of the evi- 
dence in behalf of the particular miracle on the occasion of which these remarks 
were written, the article itself is worthy of the highest praise, as a judicious 
statement of the religious value of miracles, supposing their actual occurrence to 
be proved by sufficient testimony. 

2 Evidence of Natural and Revealed Religion, Prop. xiv. 

3 Notes on the Miracles of our Lord, p. 94 (fifth edition). 



341 NOTES. Lect. VIII. 

The Gospel is a Force in the world, it is a force available for the good 
of man, not because it is Wisdom, but because it is Power. . . . But the 
momentum supplied by the Gospel is a force which disappears — which 
is utterly gone, gone for ever, when Belief in its authority, as attested by 
miracles, is destroyed." — Pp. 290, 291, 292. To the same effect are the 
excellent remarks with which Neander concludes his Life of Jesus Christ. 
"The end of Christ's appearance on earth corresponds to its beginning. 
No link in its chain of supernatural facts can be lost, without taking away 
its significance as a whole. Christianity rests upon these facts; stands 
or falls with them. By faith in them has the Divine life been generated 
from the beginning; by faith in them has that life in all ages regenerated 
mankind, raised them above the limits of earthly life, changed them from 
glebce adscripti to citizens of heaven, and formed the stage of transition 
from an existence chained to nature, to a free, celestial life, far raised 
above it. Were this faith gone, there might, indeed, remain many of the 
effects of what Christianity has been; but as for Christianity in the true 
sense, as for a Christian Church, there could be none."— (English Trans- 
lation, p. 487). 

Note VI., p. 183. 

Parker, Some Account of my Ministry, appended to Theism, Atheism, and 
the Popular Theology, p. 258. 

Note VII., p. 183. 

" All these criteria are the moral conditions under which alone it were 
possible for such a manifestation to be realized, conformably to the con- 
ception of a revelation; but by no means conversely — the conditions of 
an effect which could be realized only by God conformably to such a con- 
ception. In the latter case, they would — to the exclusion of the causality 
of all other beings — justify the conclusion, that is revelation; but, as it 
is, only this conclusion is justified; that can be a revelation." — Fichte, 
Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung ( Werke V. p. 146). 

Note VIII., p. 184. 

" These . . . were the outer conditions of the life of Christ, under which 
his public ministry and his personal character reached their destined 
development. It is not in that development alone, but in that develop- 
ment under these conditions, that the evidence will be found of his True 



Lect. VIII. NOTES. 345 

Origin and of his Personal Preeminence." — The Christ of History, by 
John Young, p. 33. "But this character, in its unapproachable grandeur, 
must be viewed in connection with the outward circumstances of the 
Being in whom it was realized, — in connection with a life not only un- 
privileged, but offering numerous positive hindrances to the origination, 
the growth, and, most of all, the perfection of spiritual excellence. In 
a Jew of Nazareth — a young man — an uneducated mechanic — moral 
perfection was realized. Can this phenomenon be accounted for? There 
is here, without doubt, a manifestation of humanity; but the question is, 
was this a manifestation of mere humanity and no more ? " — Ibid. p. 2-51.1 

Note IX., p. 185. 
Newman, The Soul, p. 58. 



Analogy, Part II. ch. 3. 



Note X., p. 187. 



Note XI., p. 190. 



"Although some circumstances in the description of God's Firstborn 
and Elect, by whom this change is to be accomplished, may primarily 
apply to collective Israel [many others will admit of no such application. 
Israel surely was not the child whom a virgin was to bear; Israel did not 
make his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; Israel 
scarcely reconciled that strangely blended variety of suffering and tri- 
umph, which was predicted of the Messiah]." — R. Williams, Rational 
Godliness, p. 56. In a note to this passage, the author adds, " I no longer 
feel confident of the assertion in brackets ; but now believe that all the 
prophecies have primarily an application nearly contemporaneous." As 
a specimen of this application, we may cite a subsequent passage from 
the same volume, p. 169* " The same Isaiah sees that Israel, whom God 
had called out of Egypt, and whom the Eternal had denominated his 
first-born, trampled, captive, and derided; he sees the beauty of the 

1 The able and impressive argument of this little work is well worthy of the 
perusal of those who would see what is the real force of the Christian evidences, 
even upon the lowest ground to which skepticism can attempt to reduce them. 
Though far from representing the whole strength of the case, it is most valuable 
as showing what may be effected in behalf of Christianity, on the principles of 
its opponents. 



340 NOTES. Lect. VIII. 

sanctuary defiled, and the anointed priests of the living God degraded 
from their office, led as sheep to the slaughter, insulted by their own 
countrymen, as men smitten of God, cast off by Jehovah. Ah ! he says, 
it is through the wickedness of the nations that Israel is thus afflicted ; it 
is through the apostasy of the people that the priesthood is thus smitten 
and reviled; the} r hide their faces from the Lord's servant; nevertheless, 
no weapon that is formed against him shall prosper. It is a little thing 
that He should merely recover Israel, He shall also be a light to the Gen- 
tiles, and a salvation to the ends of the earth." 

There are few unprejudiced readers who will not think the author's first 
thought on this subject preferable to his second. In the interpretation of 
any profane author, the perverse ingenuity which regards the Fifty-Third 
chapter of Isaiah (to say nothing of the other portions of the prophecy, 
which Dr. Williams has divorced from their context), as a description of 
the contemporaneous state of the Jewish people and priesthood, would be 
considered as too extravagant to need refutation. That such an interpre- 
tation should have found favor with thoroughgoing rationalists, deter- 
mined at all hazards to expel the supernatural from Scripture, is only to 
be expected; and this may explain the adoption of this and similar views 
by a considerable school of expositors in Germany. But that it should 
have been received by those who, like Dr. Williams, hold fast the doctrine 
of the Incarnation of the Son of God, is less easily to be accounted for. 
If this greatest of all miracles be once conceded, — if it be allowed that 
" when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made 
of a woman; " — what marvel is it, that, while the time was still incom- 
plete, a prophet should have been divinely inspired to proclaim the future 
redemption ? Once concede the possibility of the supernatural at all, and 
the Messianic interpretation is the only one reconcilable with the facts of 
history and the plain meaning of words. The fiction of a contemporane- 
ous sense, whether with or without a subsequent Messianic application, is 
only needed to get rid of direct inspiration; and nothing is gained by 
getting rid of inspiration, so long as a fragment of the supernatural is 
permitted to remain. It is only when we assume, a priori, that the super- 
natural is impossible, that anything is gained !fy forcing the prophetic 
language into a different meaning. 



Note XII., p. 191 

Of this Eclectic Christianity, of which Schleiermacher may be considered 
as the chief modern representative, a late gifted and lamented writer has 
truly observed: "He could not effect the rescue of Christianity on these 



Lect. VIII. NOTES. 317 

principles without serious loss to the object of his care. His efforts resem- 
ble the benevolent intervention of the deities of the classic legends, who, 
to save the nymph from her pursuer, changed her into a river or a tree. 
It may be that the stream and the foliage have their music and their 
beauty, that we may think we hear a living voice still in the whispers of 
the one and the murmurs of the other, yet the beauty of divine Truth, our 
heavenly visitant, cannot but be grievously obscured by the change, for 
' the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another/ 
Such ecclesiastical doctrines as contain what he regards as the essence of 
Christianity are received. All others, as being feelings embodied in the 
concrete form of dogmas, as man's objective conceptions of the divine, he 

considers as open to criticism Schleiermacher accounts as thus 

indifferent the doctrine of the Trinity, the supernatural conception of the 
Saviour, many of his miracles, his ascension and several other truths of 
the same class. This one reply, ' That doctrine makes no necessary part 
of our Christian consciousness/ stands solitary, like a Codes at the bridge, 
and keeps always at bay the whole army of advancing queries. But 
surely it does constitute an essential part of our Christian consciousness, 
whether we regard the New Testament writers as trustworthy or other- 
wise. If certain parts of their account are myths, and others the expres- 
sion of Jewish prejudice, and we are bidden dismiss them accordingly from 
our faith, how are we sure that in what is left these historians were faith- 
ful, or these expositors true representatives of the mind of Christ ? Our 
Christian consciousness is likely to become a consciousness of little else 
than doubt, if we give credit to the assertion — Your sole informants on 
matters of eternal moment, were, every here and there, misled by prejudice 
and imposed upon by fable." l 

Note XIII., p. 192. 

For the objections of modern Pantheism against the immortality of the 
soul, See Lecture III., note 27. Of the resurrection of the body in partic- 
ular, Wegscheider observes : " The resurrection of the body is so far from 
being reconcilable with the precepts of sound reason, that it is embarrassed 
with very many and the gravest difficulties. For, in the first place, it can- 
not be doubted that this opinion derived its origin from the lame and im- 
perfect conceptions of men of defective culture ; for such persons, being 
destitute of a just idea of the Divine being, are wont to imagine to them- 
selves a life after death, solely after the nature of the earthly life. Hence 
it comes to pass, that, among barbarous nations, and also in the system of 

1 Essays and Remains of the Rev. Robert Alfred Vaughan, Vol. I. p. 93. 



348 NOTES. Lect. VIII. 

Zoroaster, from which the Jews themselves seem to have drawn, that 
same doctrine is discovered. Then, too, the resurrection of the body, 
taught in the books of the New Testament, which, even from the apostolic 
age, was condemned by not a few, is seen to be so closely connected with 
the mythical opinions of the Messiah, and the story of Jesus restored to 
life, that it cannot be judged of and explained by any other method than 

those myths themselves Moreover, the idea is manifestly not in 

agreement with a God most holy and good, that man, who cannot pass a 
real life without the body, is to have this body restored to him after many 

thousands of years Induced by these reasons, and others of 

scarcely less weight, we think that Jesus, wherever he is said to have 
taught the resurrection of the body, humored the opinions of his country- 
men ; or, rather, the disciples of Jesus .... falsely ascribed to Him an 
opinion of their own." 1 Concerning angels and spirits, one of the most 
significant specimens of modern Sadduceeism may be found in Dr. Don- 
aldson's " Christian Orthodoxy Reconciled with the Conclusions of Modern 
Biblical Learning," p. 347, sqq. He holds, with regard to intermediate 
Intelligences, the same view which Wegscheider suggests with regard to 
the Resurrection, namely, " that our Lord, in his dealings with the Jews, 
rather acquiesced in the established phraseology than sanctioned the prev- 
alent superstition." 2 He adds that, " in many respects, our Lord seems to 
have approved and recommended " the views of the Sadducees; though 
" he could not openly adopt a speculative truth, which was saddled with 
an application diametrically opposed to the cardinal verity of his re- 
ligion." 3 It is obvious that, by this method of exposition, "Christian 
Orthodoxy" may mean anything or nothing. Any doctrine which this or 

1 Institutions Theologies, § 195. 

2 P. 363. That is to say, it is boldly maintained that our Lord, in order to 
humor the prejudices of the Jews of that day, consented to lend his authority to 
the dissemination of a religious falsehood for the deception of posterity. This 
monstrous assertion is stated more plainly by Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Polit. 
c 2. " Indeed He accommodated His forms of thought to every one's principles 
and opinions. For instance, when He said to the Pharisees, And if Satan cast out 
Satan, he is divided against himself, how then can his kingdom stand ? he meant only 
to convict the Pharisees on their own principles, not to teach the doctrine of 
demons." In like manner, Schleiermacher ( Christliche Glaube, § 42) asserts that 
Christ and his Apostles possibly adopted the popular representations, as we speak 
of fairies and ghosts. On the other side, it is justly urged by Storr( Doctrina 
Christiana, § 52), that our Lord employed the same language privately with his 
disciples, as well as publicly with the people; e. g. Matt. xiii. 39, xxv. 41; Mark 
iv. 15; Luke xxii. 31. See also Mosheim's note, translated in Harrison's edition 
of Cudworth, Vol. II. p. 631; Neander, Life of Christ, p. 157 (Eng. Tr.); Lee, In- 
spiration of Holy Scripture, p. 69 (second edition). 

3 Pp. 372, 373. 



Lect. VIII. NOTES. 3-19 

that expositor finds it convenient to reject, may be set aside as a conces- 
sion to popular phraseology; and thus the teaching of Christ may be 
stripped of its most essential doctrines by men who profess all the while to 
believe in His immanent Divinity and Omniscience. Strauss arrives at a 
similar conclusion, though, of course, without troubling himself about 
Scriptural premises. " It is, therefore, not enough to leave undecided, 
with Schleiermacher, the possibility of such beings as angels, and only to 
fix so much as this, that we have neither to take account of them in our 
conduct, nor to expect further revelations of their nature; rather is it the 
case, that, if the modern idea of God and the world is correct, there can- 
not be any such beings any where at all." l In the same spirit Mr. Parker 
openly maintains that "Jesus shared the erroneous notions of the times 
respecting devils, possessions, and demonology in general ;" 2 — a conclu- 
sion which is at least more logical and consistent than that of those who 
acknowledge the divine authority of the Teacher, yet claim a right to 
reject as much as they please of his teaching. 

Note XIV., p. 192. 
Greg, Creed of Christendom, Preface, p. xii. 

Note XV, p. 192. 

The theory which represents the human race as in a constant state of 
religious progress, and the various religions of antiquity as successive 
steps in the education of mankind, has been a favorite with various 
schools of modern philosophy. Hegel, as might naturally be expected, 
propounds a theory of the necessary development of religious ideas, as 
determined by the movements of the universal Spirit. 3 It is true that he 
is compelled by the stern necessities of chronology to represent the poly- 
theism of Greece and Rome as an advance on the monotheism of Judea; 4 

1 Chrhlliche Glaubenslehre, § 49. To the same effect are his remarks on Evil 
Spirits, § 54. Among the earlier rationalists, the same view is taken by Rohr, 
Briefe uber den Rationalismus, p. 35. 

2 Discourse of matters pertaining to Religion, p. 176. 

3 See Philosophie der Geschichte, Werke, IX. p. 14. Philosophic der Religion, Werke, 

XI. p. 76, 78. 

4 See his Philosophie der Religion, Werke, XI. p. 82. XII. p. 45. The superiority 
of the Greek religion appears to consist in its greater acknowledgment of human 
freedom, and perhaps in being a step in the direction of Pantheism See Werke, 

XII. 92, 125. Of the Roman religion, he says that it contained in itself all the 
elements of Christianity, and was a necessary step to the latter. Its evils sprang 

30 



350 NOTES. Lect. VIII. 

and perhaps, if we regard the Hegelian philosophy as the final consum- 
mation of all religious truth, this retrograde progress may be supported by 
some plausible arguments. 1 Another form of the same theory is that of 
Comte, who traces the progress of humanity through Fetichism, Polythe- 
ism, and Monotheism, to culminate at last in the Positive Religion, which 
worships the idea of humanity, including therein the auxiliary animals. 2 
In theories of this kind, the distinction between progress and mere fluctu- 
ation depends upon the previous question, Whence, and Whither? What 
was the original state of religious knowledge in mankind, and what is the 
end to which it is advancing? If Pantheism or Atheism is the highest 
form of religious truth, every step in that direction is unquestionably pro- 
gressive; if otherwise, it is not progress, but corruption. 

The previous question is clearly stated by Theodore Parker. "From 
what point did the human race set out, — from civilization and the true 
worship of one God, or from cannibalism and the deification of nature? 
Has the human race fallen or risen ? The question is purely historical, 
and to be answered by historical witnesses. But in the presence, and still 
more in the absence, of such witnesses, the a priori doctrines of the man's 
philosophy affect his decision. Reasoning with no facts is as easy as all 
motion in vacuo. The analogy of the geological formation of the earth — 
its gradual preparation, so to say, for the reception of plants and animals, 
the ruder first, and then the more complex and beautiful, till at last she 
opens her bosom to man, — this, in connection with many similar analo- 
gies, would tend to show that a similar order was to be expected in the 
affairs of men — development from the lower to the higher, and not the 

from the depth of its spirit (XII. pp. 181, 184). The best commentary on this 
assertion may be found in Augustine, Be Civ. Dei, Lib. VI. 

1 Among the imperfections of Judaism, Hegel includes the fact that " it did not 
make men conscious of the identity of the human soul with the Absolute, and 
its absorption therein (die Anschauung und das Bewusstseyn von der Einheit der 
Seele mit dem Absoluten, oder von der Aufnahme der Seele in den Schooss des 
Absoluten ist noch nicht erwacht, Werke, XII. p. 86). In another place (p. 161) he 
speaks of it as the religion of obstinate, dead understanding. Vatke {Bibtiscke 
Theologie, p. 115) carries the absurdity of theory to its climax, by boldly main- 
taining that the later Judaism had been elevated by its conflict with the religions 
of Greece and Rome, and thus prepared to become the precursor of Christianity. 
The Hegelian theory is also adopted by Baur, as representing the law of develop- 
ment of Christian doctrines. The historical aspects of the doctrine are to be 
regarded as phases of a process, in which the several forms are determined one 
by another, and all are united together in the totality of the idea. See especially 
his ChristUche Lekre von der Versohnung, p. 11, and the preface to the same work, 
p. vi. 

2 Cours de Philosophie Positive, Lemons, 52, 53, 54. Compare Catechisme Positiuiste, 
pp. 31, 184, 243. 



Lect. VIII. NOTES. 351 

reverse. In strict accordance with this analogy,, some have taught that 
man was created in the lowest stage of savage life; his Religion the rudest 
worship of nature; his Morality that of the cannibal; that all of the civilized 
races have risen from this point, and gradually passed through Fctiehism 
and Polytheism, before they reached refinement and true Religion. The 
spiritual man is the gradual development of germs latent in the natural 
man/'i 

It is to be regretted that Professor Jowett has partially given the sanc- 
tion of his authority to a theory which it is to be presumed he would not 
advocate to the full extent of the above statement. "The theory of a 
primitive religion common to all mankind/' he tells us, " has only to be 
placed distinctly before the mind, to make us aware that it is the baseless 
fabric of a vision; there is one stream of revelation only — the Jewish. 
But even if it were conceivable, it would be inconsistent with facts. The 
earliest history tells nothing of a general religion, but of particular beliefs 
about stocks and stones, about places and persons, about animal life, about 
the sun, moon, and stars, about the divine essence permeating the world, 
about gods in the likeness of men appearing in battles and directing the 
course of states, about the world below, about sacrifices, purifications, 
initiations, magic, mysteries. These were the true religions of nature, 
varying with different degrees of mental culture or civilization." 2 And in 
an earlier part of the same Essay, he says, " No one who looks at the re- 
ligions of the world, stretching from east to west, through so many cycles 
of human history, can avoid seeing in them a sort of order and design. 
They are like so many steps in the education of mankind. Those count- 
less myriads of human beings who know no other truth than that of re- 
ligions coeval with the days of the Apostle, or even of Moses, are not 
wholly uncared for in the sight of God." 3 

It would be unfair to press these words to a meaning which they do not 
necessarily bear. We will assume that by the " earliest history," profane 
history alone is meant, in opposition to the Jewish Revelation ; and that 
the author does not intend, as some of his critics have supposed, to deny 
the historical character of the Book of Genesis, and the existence of a 
primitive revelation coeval with the creation of man. Even with this 



1 Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion, p. 68, 69. A similar view is advo- 
cated by Mr. Newman, Phases of Faith, p. 223, and by Mr. Greg, Creed of Christen- 
dom, p. 71. Mr. Parker does not distinctly adopt this view as his own, but he 
appears to regard it as preferable to the antagonist theory, which he speaks of 
as supported by a " party consisting more of poets and dogmatists than of 
philosophers." 

2 Epistles of St. Paul, Vol. II. p. 395. 

3 Ibid., p. 386. 



352 NOTES. Lect. VIII. 

limitation, the evidence is stated far too absolutely. But the words last 
quoted are, to say the least, incautious, and suggest coincidence in a 
favorite theory of modern philosophy, equally repugnant to Scripture and 
to natural religion. Two very opposite views may be taken of the false 
religions of antiquity. The Scriptures invariably speak of them as cor- 
ruptions of man's natural reason, and abominations in the sight of God. 
Some modern writers delight to represent them as instruments of God's 
Providence, and steps in the education of mankind. This view naturally 
belongs to that pantheistic philosophy which recognizes no Deity beyond 
the actual constitution of the world, which acknowledges all that exists as 
equally divine, or, which is the same thing, equally godless; but it is ir- 
reconcilable with the belief in a personal God, and in a distinction between 
the good which He approves and the evil which He condemns. But men 
will concede much to philosophy who will concede nothing to Scripture. 
The sickly and sentimental morality which talks of the " ferocious " God 
of the popular theology, 1 which is indignant at the faith of Abraham, 2 
which shudders over the destruction of the Canaanites, 3 which prides itself 
in discovering imperfections in the law of Moses, 4 is content to believe 
that the God who could not sanction these things, could yet create man 
with the morality of a cannibal, and the religion of a fetish-worshipper, 
and ordain for him a law of development through the purifying stages 
which marked the civilization of Egypt and Babylon and Imperial Rome. 
Verily this unbelieving Reason makes heavy demands on the faith of its 
disciples. It will not tolerate the slightest apparent anomaly in the moral 
government of God; but it is ready, when its theories require, to propound 
a scheme of deified iniquity, which it is hardly exaggeration to designate 
as the moral government of Satan. 

We must believe, indeed, that in the darkest ages of idolatry, God " left 
not himself without witness;" we must believe that the false religions 
of the world, like its other evils, are overruled by God to the purposes of 
His good Providence. But this does not make them the less evils and 
abominations in the sight of God. Those who speak of the human race 
as under a law of vegetable development, forget that man has, what veget- 
ables have not, a moral sense and a free will. It is indeed impossible, in 
our present state of knowledge, to draw exactly the line between the sins 
and the misfortunes of individuals, to decide how much of each man's 
history is due to his own will, and how much to the circumstances in 
which he is placed. But though Scripture, like philosophy, offers no com- 

1 Parker, Theism, Atheism, and the Popular Theology, p. 103, 104. 

2 Parker, Discourse of Religion, p. 214. Newman, Phases of Faith, p. 150. 

3 Parker, Discourse, p. 87. Newman, Phases, p. 151. 

4 Parker, Discourse, p. 204, 223. Greg, Creed of Christendom, p. 75. 



Lect. VIII. NOTES. 353 

plete solution of the problem of the existence of evil, it at least distinctly 
points out what the true solution is not. So long as it represents the sin of 
man as a fall from the state in which God originally placed him, and as a 
rebellion against a divine command; so long as it represents idolatry as 
hateful to God, and false religion as a declension towards evil, not as 
a progress towards good; — so long it emphatically records its protest 
against both the self-delusion which denies that evil exists at all, and the 
blasphemy which asserts that it exists by the appointment of God. 



Note XVL, p. 195. 

" It is an obvious snare, that many, out of such abundance of knowl- 
edge, should be tempted to forget at times this grand and simple point — 
that all vital truth is to be sought from Scripture alone. Hence that they 
should be tempted rather to combine systems for themselves according to 
some proportion and fancy of their own, than be content neither to add 
nor diminish anything from that which Christ and his Apostles have en- 
joined; to make up, as it were, a cento of doctrines and of precepts; to 
take from Christ what pleases them, and from other stores what pleases 
them (of course the best from each, as it appears to their judgment, so as 
to exhibit the most perfect whole) ; taking e. g. the blessed hope of everlast- 
ing life from Jesus Christ, but rejecting his atonement; or honoring 
highly his example of humanity, but disrobing Him of his divinity; or 
accepting all the comfortable things of the dispensation of the Spirit, but 
refusing its strictness and self-denials ; or forming any other combination 
whatsoever, to the exclusion of the entire Gospel : thus inviting Christian 
hearers, not to the supper of the king's son, but to a sort of miscellaneous 
banquet of their own ; ' using their liberty/ in short, * as an occasion ' to 
that natural disposition, which Christ came to correct and to repair. 

" Now that by such methods, enforced by education and strengthened by 
the best of secondary motives, men may attain to an excellent proficiency 
in morals, I am neither prepared nor disposed to dispute. I am not desir- 
ous of disputing that they may possess therein an excellent religion, as 
opposed to Mahometanism or Paganism. But that they possess the true 
account to be given of their stewardship of that one talent, the Gospel 
itself, I do doubt in sorrow and fear. I do doubt whether they ' live the 
life that now is/ as St. Paul lived it, 'by the faith of the Sox of God; ' 
by true apprehension of the things that He suffered for us, and of the 
right which He has purchased to command us in all excellent qualities 
and actions; and further, of the invisible but real assistance which he 
gives us towards the performance of them." Miller, Bampton Lectures, p. 
169 (third edition). 

30* 



354 NOTES. Lect. VIII. 



Note XVII., p. 195. 

"Thus in the great variety of religious situations in which men are 
placed, what constitutes, what chiefly and peculiarly constitutes, the pro- 
bation, in all senses, of some persons, may be the difficulties in which the 
evidence of religion is involved : and their principal and distinguished trial 
may be, how they will behave under and with respect to these difficulties." 
Butler, Analogy, Part II. ch. 6. 



Note XVIII., p. 197. 

I do not mean by these remarks to deny the possibility of any progress 
whatever in Christian Theology, such for instance, as may result from the 
better interpretation of Holy Writ, or the refutation of unauthorized infer- 
ences therefrom. But all such developments of doctrine are admissible 
only when confined within the limits so carefully laid down in the sixth 
Article of our Church. " Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary 
to salvation : so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved 
thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an 
Article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." 
Within these limits, the most judicious theologians have not hesitated to 
allow the possibility of progress, as regards at least the definite statement 
of Christian doctrine. Thus Bishop Butler remarks : " As it is owned the 
whole scheme of Scripture is not yet understood; so, if it ever comes to be 
understood, before the restitution of all things, and without miraculous in- 
terpositions, it must be in the same way as natural knowledge is come at : 
by the continuance and progress of learning and liberty; and by particu- 
lar persons attending to, comparing, and pursuing intimations scattered 
up and down it, which are overlooked and disregarded by the generality 
of the world." 1 And a worthy successor to the name has pointed out the 
distinction between true and false developments of doctrine, in language 
based upon the same principle : " Are there admissible developments of doc- 
trine in Christianity? Unquestionably there are. But let the term be 
understood in its legitimate sense or senses to warrant that answer; and 
let it be carefully observed how much, and how little, the admission really 
involves. All varieties of real development, so far as this argument is 
concerned, may probably be reduced to two general heads, intellectual de- 
velopments, and practical developments, of Christian doctrine. By ' intel- 
lectual developments/ I understand logical inferences (and that whether for 



1 Analogy, Part II. ch. 3. 



Lect. VIII. NOTES. 855 

belief or practical discipline), from doctrines, or from the comparison of 
doctrines; which, in virtue of the great dialectical maxim, must be true, 
if legitimately deduced from what is true. ' Practical developments ' are 
the living, actual, historical results of those true doctrines (original or infer- 
ential), when considered as influential on all the infinite varieties of human 
kind ; the doctrines embodied in action ; the doctrines modifying human 
nature in ways infinitely various, correspondent^ to the infinite variety of 
subjects on whom they operate, though ever strictly preserving, amid all 
their operations for effectually transforming and renewing mankind, their 
own unchanged identity. ... In the former case, revealed doctrines may 
be compared with one another, or with the doctrines of 'natural religion;' 
or the consequences of revealed doctrines may be compared with other 
doctrines, or with their consequences, and so on in great variety : the com- 
bined result being what is called a System of Theology. What the first 
principles of Christian truth really are, or how obtained, is not now the 
question. But in all cases equally, no doctrine has any claim whatever to 
be received as obligatory on belief, unless it be either itself some duly 
authorized principle, or a logical deduction, through whatever number of 
stages, from some such principle of religion. Such only are legitimate 
developments of doctrine for the belief of man; and such alone can the 
Church of Christ — the Witness and Conservator of His Truth — justly 
commend to the consciences of her members. . . . But in truth, as our 
own liability to error is extreme, especially when immersed in the holy 
obscurity ("the cloud on the mercy-seat") of such mysteries as these, we 
have reason to thank God that there appear to be few doctrinal develop- 
ments of any importance which are not from the first drawn out and de- 
livered on divine authority to our acceptance." i 

It is impossible not to regret deeply the very different language, on this 
point, of a writer in many respects worthy of better things; but who, 
while retaining the essential doctrines of Christianity, has, it is to be 
feared, done much to unsettle the authority on which they rest. " If the 
destined course of the world," says Dr. Williams, " be really one of provi- 
dential progress, if there has been such a thing as a childhood of humanity, 
and if God has been educating either a nation or a Church to understand 
their duty to Himself and to mankind; it must follow, that when the ful- 
ness of light is come, there will be childish things to put away. . . . 
Hence, if the religious records represent faithfully the inner life of each 
generation, whether a people or a priesthood, they will be, in St. Paul's 
phrase, divinely animated, or with a divine life running through them ; and 
every writing, divinely animated, will be useful; yet they may, or rather, 

1 W. A. Butler, Letters on the Development of Christian Doctrine, pp. 55—58. 



356 NOTES. Lect. VIII. 

they must be cast in the mould of the generation in which they are written; 
their words, if they are true words, will express the customs of their 
country, the conceptions of their times, the feelings or aspirations of their 
writers ; and the measure of knowledge or of faith to which every one, in 
his degree, had attained. And the limitation, thus asserted, of their range 
of knowledge, will be equally true, whether we suppose the shortcoming 
to be, on an idea of special Providence, from a particular dictation of senti- 
ment in each case ; or whether, on the more reasonable view of a general 
Providence, we consider such things permitted rather than directed ; the 
natural result of a grand scheme, rather than a minute arrangement of 
thoughts and words for each individual man. It may be, that the Lord 
writes the Bible, on the same principle as the Lord builds the city; or that 
He teaches the Psalmist to sing, in the same sense as He teaches his 
fingers to figfot ; thus that the composition of Scripture is attributed to the 
Almighty, just as sowing and threshing are said to be taught by Him; for 
every part played by man comes from the Divine Disposer of the scene." 1 
It is the misfortune of this sort of language, that it suggests far more 
than it directly asserts, and probably more than the author intends to 
convey. Dr. Williams probably does not mean to imply that we are no 
more bound by the authority of Scripture in matters of religion than by 
the primitive practice in sowing and threshing, or that we are as much at 
liberty to invent new theological doctrines as new implements of husban- 
dry. But if he does not mean this, it is to be regretted that he has not 
clearly pointed out the respects in which his comparison does not hold 
good. 

Note XIX., p. 198. 
Summa, P. I. Qu. II. Art. 2. 

Note XX., p. 198. 

See Archbishop King's Discourse on Predestination, edited by Archbishop 
Whately, p. 10. A different, and surely a more judicious view, is taken 
by a contemporary Prelate of the Irish Church, whose earlier exposition 
of the same theory 2 probably furnished the foundation of the Archbish- 
op's discourse. "Though," says Bishop Browne, "there are literally 

1 Rational Godliness, pp. 291, 292. A similar view is maintained by Mr. Morell, 
Philosophy of Religion, p. 183, and is criticised by Professor Lee, Inspiration of 
Holy Scripture, p. 147. 

2 In his Letter in answer to Toland's Christianity not mysterious. 



Lect. Yin. notes. 357 

speaking no such passions in God as Love or Hatred, Joy or Anger, or 
Pity; yet there may be Inconceivable Perfections in Him some way answer- 
able to what those passions are in us, under a due regulation and subjec- 
tion to reason. It is sure that in God those perfections are not attended 
with any degree of natural disturbance or moral irregularity, as the pas- 
sions are in us. Nay, Fear and Hope, which imply something future for 
their objects, may have nothing answerable to them in the divine Nature 
to which everything is present. But since our reasonable affections are 
real dispositions of the Soul, which is composed of Spirit as well as Mat- 
ter; we must conclude something in God analogous to them, as well as to 
our Knowledge or Power. For it cannot be a thought unworthy of being 
transferred to him, that he really loves a virtuous and hates a vicious agent; 
that he is angry at sinners ; pities their moral infirmities ; is pleased with 
their innocence or repentance, and displeased with their transgressions; 
though all these Perfections are in Him accompanied with the utmost 
serenity, and never-failing tranquillity ■." 'l With this may be compared the 
language of Tertullian (Adv. Marc. II. 16), "All which He suffers after 
His own manner, even as man after his." 

Note XXI., p. 199. 

Compare the remarks of Hooker, E. P. I. 3. 2. " Moses, in describing 
the work of creation, attributeth speech unto God. . . . Was this only the 
intent of Moses, to signify the infinite greatness of God's power by the 
easiness of his accomplishing such effects, without travail, pain, or labor? 
Surely it seemeth that Moses had herein besides this a further purpose, 
namely, first to teach that God did not work as a necessary but a volun- 
tary agent, intending beforehand and decreeing with himself that which 
did outwardly proceed from him. Secondly, to shew that God did then 
institute a law natural to be observed by creatures, and therefore accord- 
ing to the manner of laws, the institution thereof is described, as being 
established by solemn injunction." 

Note XXII., p. 200. 

" But they urge, there can be no proportion or similitude between Finite 
and Infinite, and consequently there can be no analogy. That there can 

1 Divine Analogy, pp. 45, 46. King's Theory is also criticized more directly by 
the same author in the Procedure of the Understanding, p. 11. Mr. Davison (Dis- 
courses on Prophecy, p. 513) has noticed the weak points in King's explanation ; 
but with too great a leaning to the opposite extreme, which reasons concerning 
the infinite as if it were a mere expansion of the finite. 



358 NOTES. Lect. VIII. 

"be no such proportion or similitude as there is between finite created be- 
ings is granted; or as there is between any material substance and its 
resemblance in the glass; and therefore wherein the real ground of this 
analogy consists, and what the degrees of it are, is as incomprehensible 
as the real Nature of God. But it is such an analogy as he himself hath 
adapted to our intellect, and made use of in his Revelations ; and therefore 
we are sure it hath such a foundation in the nature both of God and man, 
as renders our moral reasonings concerning him and his attributes, solid, 
and just, and true." — Bp. Browne, Procedure of the Understanding, p. 31. 
The practical result of this remark is, that we must rest satisfied with a 
belief in the analogical representation itself, without seeking to rise above 
it by substituting an explanation of its ulterior significance or real ground. 



Note XXIII., p. 200. 

I am glad to take this opportunity of expressing, in the above words, 
my belief in the purpose and authority of Holy Scripture ; inasmuch as it 
enables me to correct a serious misunderstanding into which a distin- 
guished writer has fallen in a criticism of my supposed views — a criticism 
to which the celebrity of the author will probably give a far wider circu- 
lation than is ever likely to fall to the lot of the small pamphlet which 
called it forth. Mr. Maurice, in the preface to the second edition of his 
" Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament," comments upon the 
distinction (maintained in the present Lectures and in a small previous 
publication), between speculative and regulative truths, in the following 
terms. " The notion of a revelation that tells us things which are not in 
themselves true, but which it is right for us to believe and to act upon as 
if they were true, has, I fear, penetrated very deeply into the heart of our 
English schools, and of our English world. It may be traced among per- 
sons who are apparently most unlike each other, who live to oppose and 
confute each other. . . . But their differences are not in the least likely 
to be adjusted by the discovery of this common ground. How the atmos- 
phere is to be regulated by the regulative Revelation ; at what degree of 
heat or cold this constitution or that can endure it ; who must fix — since 
the language of the Revelation is assumed not to be exact, not to express 
the very lesson which we are to derive from it — what it does mean ; by 
what contrivances its phrases are to be adapted to various places and 
times : these are questions which must, of course, give rise to infinite dis- 
putations; ever new schools and sects must be called into existence to set- 
tle them; there is scope for permissions, prohibitions, compromises, perse- 
cutions, to any extent. The despair which these must cause will probably 



Lect. VIII. NOTES. 359 

drive numbers to ask for an infallible human voice, which shall regulate 
for each period that which the Revelation has so utterly failed to regu- 
late." 

Now I certainly believed, and believe still, that God is infinite, and that 
no human mode of thought, nor even a Revelation, if it is to be intelligi- 
ble by the human mind, can represent the infinite, save under finite forms. 
And it is a legitimate inference from this position, that no human repre- 
sentation, whether derived from without or from within, from Revelation 
or from natural Religion, can adequately exhibit the absolute nature of 
God. But I cannot admit, as a further legitimate inference, that therefore 
" the language of the Revelation does not express the very lesson which 
we are to derive from it; " that it needs any regulation to adjust it to "this 
constitution or that; " that it requires "to be adapted to various places 
and times." For surely, if all men are subject to the same limitations of 
thought, the adaptation to their constitutions must be made already, be- 
fore human interpretation can deal with the Revelation at all. It is not to 
the peculiarities which distinguish " this " constitution from " that," that 
the Revelation has to be adapted by man; but, as it is given by God, it is 
adapted already to the general conditions which are common to all human 
constitutions alike, which are equally binding in all places and at all times. 
I have said nothing of a revelation adapted to one man more than to an- 
other; nothing of limitations which any amount of intellect or learning 
can enable a man to overcome. I have not said that the Bible is the 
teacher of the peasant rather than of the philosopher; of the Asiatic 
rather than of the European; of the first century rather than of the nine- 
teenth. I have said only that it is the teacher of man as man ; and that 
this is compatible with the possible existence of a more absolute truth in 
relation to beings of a higher intelligence. We must at any rate admit 
that man does not know God as God knows Himself; and hence that he 
does not know Him in the fulness of His Absolute Nature. But surely 
this admission is so far from implying that Revelation does not teach the 
very lesson which we are to derive from it, that it makes that lesson the 
more universal and the more authoritative. For Revelation is subject to 
no other limitations than those which encompass all human thought. 
Man gains nothing by rejecting or perverting its testimony; for the mys- 
tery of Revelation is the mystery of Reason also. 

I do not wish to extend this controversy further; for I am willing to 
believe that, on this question at least, my own opinion is substantially one 
with that of my antagonist. At any rate, I approve as little as he does 
of allegorical, or metaphysical, or mythical interpretations of Scripture : 
I believe that he is generally right in maintaining that " the most literal 
meaning of Scripture is the most spiritual meaning." And if there are 



860 NOTES. Lect. VIII. 

points in the details of his teaching with which I am unable to agree, I 
believe that they are not such as legitimately arise from the consistent 
application of this canon. 



Note XXIV., p. 201. 

"There seems no possible reason to be given, why we may not be in a 
state of moral probation, with regard to the exercise of our understand- 
ing upon the subject of religion, as we are with regard to our behaviour in 
common affairs. . . . Thus, that religion is not intuitively true, but a 
matter of deduction and inference; that a conviction of its truth is not 
forced upon every one, but left to be, by some, collected with heedful 
attention to premises; this as much constitutes religious probation, as 
much affords sphere, scope, opportunity, for right and wrong behaviour, 
as anything whatever does." — Butler, Analogy, Part II. ch. 6. 



Note XXV., p. 202. 

Plato, Rep. VI. p. 486 : " And this also it is necessary to consider, when 
you would distinguish between a nature which is philosophical, and one 
which is not. — What then is that? — That it takes no part, even unob- 
served, in any meanness ; for petty littleness is every way most contrary 
to a soul that is ever stretching forward in desire to the whole and the all, 
to divine and to human." — Cicero, T>e Off. II. 2 : " Nor is philosophy any- 
thing else, if you will define it, than the study of wisdom. But wisdom 
(as defined by ancient philosophers) is the knowledge of things human 
and divine, and of the causes in which these are contained." 



Note XXVI. , p. 202. 

Plato, Protag. p. 343: "And these, having met together by agreement, 
consecrated to Apollo, in his temple at Delphi, as the first fruits of wis- 
dom, those inscriptions which are in everybody's mouth, Know thyself, 
and Nothing to excess.' 7 — Compare Jacobi, Werke, IV.; Vorbcricht, p. 
xlii.: " Know thyself is, according to the Delphian god and Socrates, the 
highest command, and, so soon as it becomes practical, man is made 
aware of this truth: without the Divine Thou, there is no human I, and 
without the human I, there is no Divine Thou." 



Lect. VIII. NOTES. 361 



Note XXYII., p. 202. 

Clemens Alex. Pcedag. III. 1: "It is, then, as it appears, the greatest 
of all lessons, to know one's self; for, if any one knows himself, he will 
know God." 

Note XXVIII., p. 203. 

" It is plain that there is a capacity in the nature of man, which neither 
riches, nor honors, nor sensual gratifications, nor anything in this world, 
can perfectly fill up or satisfy : there is a deeper and more essential want, 
than any of these things can he the supply of. Yet surely there is a pos- 
sibility of somewhat, which may fill up all our capacities of happiness; 
somewhat, in which our souls may find rest; somewhat, which may be to 
us that satisfactory good we are inquiring after. But it cannot be any- 
thing which is valuable only as it tends to some further end. ... As our 
understanding can contemplate itself, and our affections be exercised upon 
themselves by reflection, so may each be employed in the same manner 
upon any other mind. And since the Supreme Mind, the Author and 
Cause of all things, is the highest possible object to himself, he may be 
an adequate supply to all the faculties of our souls; a subject to our un- 
derstanding, and an object to our affections." — Butler, Sermon XIV. 



Note XXIX., p. 203. 

" Christianity is not a religion for the religious, but a religion for man. 
I do not accept it because my temperament so disposes me, and because 
it meets my individual mood of mind, or my tastes. I accept it as it is 
suited to that moral condition in respect of which there is no difference of 
importance between me and the man I may next encounter on my path." 
The Restoration of Belief, p. 325. 

Note XXX., p. 203. 

" The Scripture-arguments are arguments of inducement, addressed to 
the whole nature of man — not merely to intellectual man, but to think- 
ing and feeling man, living among his fellow men; — and to be appre- 
hended therefore in their effect on our whole, nature." — Hampden, Bampton 
Lectures, p. 92. — " There are persons who complain of the Word, because 
it is not addressed to some one department of the human soul, on which 
they set a high value. The systematic divine wonders that it is not a 

31 



362 NOTES. Lect. VIII. 

mere scheme of dogmatic theology, forgetting that in such a case it would 
address itself exclusively to the understanding. The German speculatists, 
on the other hand, complain that it is not a mere exhibition of the true 
and the good, forgetting that in such a case it would have little or no in- 
fluence on the more practical faculties. Others seem to regret that it is 
not a mere code of morality, while a fourth class would wish it to be alto- 
gether an appeal to the feelings. But the Word is inspired by the same 
God who formed man at first, and who knows what is in man; and he 
would rectify not merely the understanding or intuitions, not merely the 
conscience or affections, but the whole man after the image of God." 
McCosh, Method of the Divine Government, p. 509. 



p27 -kly !>.V/.1 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 



Only those Authors are here given from whom passages are quoted. 



Angelus Silesius (Johann Schlef- 

fler), 246, 283. 
Anselm, 235, 236, 286, 320. 
Apuleius, 302. 
Aquinas, 76, 100, 282, 286, 321. 
Aristotle, 257, 273, 301, 309, 333, 339. 
Athanasius, 276, 300, 312. 
Atkinson, 290. 
Augustine, 259, 261, 281, 283, 285, 302, 

311, 312, 333. 

Babbage, 324. 

Bacon, 62, 128. 

Bartholmess, 263, 287, 288, 289, 321. 

Bauer, Bruno, 246. 

Baur, 313. 

Boethius, 100, 282. 

bolingbroke, 251. 

Bramhall, 273, 274. 

Browne (Bishop), 250, 275, 279, 310, 

338, 356, 358. 
Butler, 64, 136, 332, 338, 354, 360, 361. 
Butler (W. A.), 355. 

Calderwood, 252, 278. 

Canz, 232. 

Chemnitz, 236. 

Cicero, 301, 360. 

Clemens Alexandrinus, 248, 258, 

270, 302, 361. 
Coleridge, 264 
Comte, 247, 290, 350. 
Copleston, 335. 
Cousin, 317. 
Cudworth, 278, 335. 



Cyril, 301. 
Damascenus, 276. 
Descartes, 272, 288. 
De Stael, 289. 
Donaldson, 348. 
Drobisch, 303, 339. 

Eckart, 283. 
Edwards, 251. 
Emerson (R. W.), 247. 
Empiricus (Sextus), 231, 277, 309. 
Euler, 327. 
Ewerbeck, 271. 

Ferrier, 308. 

Feuerbach, 87, 247. 

Fichte, 62, 96, 239, 240, 243, 245, 250, 

257, 265, 272, 273, 275, 284, 285, 302, 
305, 316, 344. 

Fraser, 341. 
Froude, 237, 331, 332. 

Galen, 231. 

Gerhard, 235. 

Greg, 236, 331. 

Gregory, of Nissa, 301, 306. 

Hamilton (Sir William), 245, 256, 

258, 262, 265, 270, 282, 295. 
Hampden, 303, 361. 

Hegel, 65, 66, 76, 87, 95, 151, 152, 244, 
245, 246, 248, 249, 259, 265, 272, 273, 
312,313,314,315,349,350. 

Herder, 282, 284. 

Hobbes, 273, 275. 



364 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 



Hooker, 261, 330, 357. 
Hume, 139, 296, 304, 309. 

Irenaeus, 311. 

Jacobi, 262, 275, 286, 287, 288, 291, 293, 

330, 360. 
Jowett, 236, 237, 241, 295, 324, 329, 351. 
Justin Martyr, 276, 300. 

Kant, 63, 233, 238, 239, 241, 284, 304. 

Laertius, Diogenes, 309. 

Lee, 308. 

Leibnitz, 250, 254, 291, 808, 310, 336. 

Lessing, 302. 

Mack ay, 236. 

Malebranche, 305. 

Marheineke, 153, 244, 246, 248, 277, 

313. 
Maurice, 282, 358. 
McCosn, 279, 287, 307, 326, 362. 
Miller, 353. 
Milton, 165. 
Morell, 124, 296. 
Mozley, 340. 
Muller (Julius), 161, 337. 

Neander, 257, 291, 344. 

Newman (F. W.), 237, 249, 250, 251, 

252, 296, 301, 319, 320, 337, 342. 
Niebuhr, 270. 

Occam, 53, 238. 
Origen, 260, 261, 335. 

Parker (Theodore), 242, 249, 251, 325, 

337, 342, 350. 
Fascal, 104, 169, 254, 287, 301, 305, 306, 

342. 
Paulus, 87. 
Pearson, 271. 
Plato, 261, 276, 309, 360. 
Plotinus, 246, 258, 259, 272, 276, 277, 

282, 285. 

POELITZ, 231. 



Torphyrius, 258. 
Powell, 242, 325. 
Priestley, 237, 319. 
Proclus, 259, 276, 282. 

Rigg, 331. 
Rogers, 331. 
Rohr, 87, 267. 
Rose, 231. 
Rothe, 257. 

Schelling, 245, 249, 257, 276, 282, 283, 

312, 321. 
Schlegel(F-), 263. 

SCHLEIERMACHER, 123, 284, 300. 

Socinus, 236, 237, 238, 319. 

South, 272. 

Spinoza, 255, 256, 257, 258, 260, 261 272, 

282, 285, 316, 322, 323, 348. 
Storr, 241, 323. 
Strauss, 154, 246, 269, 285, 289, 290, 

320, 327, 349. 

SWEDENBORG, 283. 

Tertullian, 108, 293, 312, 357. 
Theophilus, of Antioch, 300. 
Tindal, 252. 
Trench, 343. 
Trendelenburg, 274, 321. 

Vatke, 87, 268. 
Vaughan, 347. 

Warburton, 252. 

Wegscheider, 87, 234, 250, 323, 327, 

332, 339, 347. 
Werenfels, 253. 

Whately, 303. 

WlLBERFORCB, 53, 238. 

Williams (R), 345, 355, 
Willm, 244,291. 
Wolf, 231. 

Xenophanes, 58, 243. 

Young (John), 345. 



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list of recent Scientific Publications ; a classified list of Patents ; Obituaries of eminent 
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This work, issued annually, contains all important facts discovered or announced during th* 
year. 

Btf Each volume is distinct in itself, and contains entirely new matter. 

INFLUENCE OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE UPON IN, 
TELLEGTUAL EDUCATION. By William Whbwkll, D. D., of Trinity 
College, Eng., and the alleged author of " Plurality of Worlds." 12mo, cloth, 25 cts. 

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES ; Its 

Typical Forms and Primeval Distribution. By Charles Hamilton Sxith. With an 
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Illustrations. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. 

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subject. The statements are made with strict impartiality, and, without a comment, left to the 
judgment of the reader." — Sartairi's Magazine. 

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. A Tiew of the Productive Forces of Modern 
Society, and the Results of Labor, Capital, and Skill. By Charles Knight. With 
numerous Illustrations. American Edition. Revised, with Additions, by David A. 
Wells, Editor of the " Annual of Scientific Discovery." 12mo, cloth, $1.25. 

E2r~ This is emphatically a book for the people. It contains an immense amount of important 
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CHAMBERS' WORKS. 

CHAMBERS' CYCLOPEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. A 

Selection of the choicest productions of English Authors, from the earliest to the present 
time. Connected by a Critical and Biographical History. Forming two large imperial 
octavo volumes of 700 pages each, double column letter press j with upwards of 300 
elegant Illustrations. Edited by Robert Chambers. Cloth, $5.00 5 sheep, $6.00 j full 
gilt, $7.50 ; half calf, $7.50 ; full calf, $10.00. 

This work embraces about one thousand Authors, chronologically arranged, and classed as 
poets, historians, dramatists, philosophers, metaphysicians, divines, etc., with choice selections 
from their writings, connected by a Biographical, Historical, and Critical Narrative ; thus present- 
ing a complete view of English Literature from the earliest to the present time. Let the reader 
open where he will, he cannot fail to find matter for profit and delight. The selections are gems — 
infinite riches in a little room ; in the language of another, "A Whole English Library fused 
down into one Cheap Book 1" 

jgQp- The American edition of this valuable work is enriched by the addition of fine steel and 
mezzotint engravings of the heads of Shakspeare, Addison, Byron ; a full-length portrait of 
Dr. Johnson ; and a beautiful scenic representation of Oliver Goldsmith and Dr. Johnson. 
These important and elegant additions, together with superior paper and binding, and other 
improvements, render the American far superior to the English edition. 

W. H. Prescott, the Historian, says, "Readers cannot fail to profit largely by the labors 
of the critic who has the talent and taste to separate what is really beautiful and worthy of their 
6tudy from what is superfluous." 

" I concur in the foregoing opinion of Mr. Prescott."— Edward Everett. 

" A popular work, indispensable to the library of a student of English literature." — Dr. "Way- 
land. 

" We hail with peculiar pleasure the appearance of this work." — JFort h American Review. 

CHAMBERS' MISCELLANY" OF USEFUL AND ENTERTAIN- 
ING KNOWLEDGE. Edited by William Chambers. With elegant Illustra- 
tive Engravings. Ten volumes. Cloth, $7.50 5 cloth, gilt, $10.00 ; library sheep, $10.00. 

" It would be difficult to find any miscellany superior or even equal to it. It richly deserves the 
epithets ' useful and entertaining,' and I would recommend it very strongly, as extremely well 
adapted to form parts of a library for the young, or of a social or circulating library in town or 
country." — Geo. B. Emerson, Esq. — Chairman Boston School Book Committee. 

CHAMBERS' HOME BOOK; or, Pocket Miscellany, containing a Choice 
Selection of Interesting and Instructive Reading, for the Old and Young. Six volumes. 
16mo, cloth, $3.00 ; library sheep, $4.00 j half calf, $6.00. 

This is considered fully equal, and in some respects superior, to either of the other works of the 
Chambers in interest ; containing a vast fund of valuable information. It is admirably adapted to 
the School or Family Library, furnishing ample variety for every class of readers. 

" The Chambers are confessedly the best caterers for popular and useful reading in the world.* 
— Willis' Home Journal. 

" A very entertaining, instructive, and popular work." — i\T. Y. Commercial. 

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people will introduce it into all their families, in order to drive away the miserable flashy-trashy 
stuff so often found in the hands of our young people of both sexes." — Scientific American. 

" Both an entertaining and instructive work, as it is certainly a very cheap one." — Puritan Re- 
corder. 

" If any person wishes to read for amusement or profit, to kill time or improve it, get ' Cham- 
bers' Home Book.' " — Chicago Times. 

CHAMBERS' REPOSITORY OF INSTRUCTIVE AND AMUS- 
ING PAPERS. With Illustrations. A New Series, containing Original Articles. 
Two volumes. 16mo, cloth, $1.75. 

The Same Work, two volumes in one, cloth, gilt back, $1.50. (29) 



IMPORTANT WORKS. 

A TREATISE OjKT THE COMPARATIVE ANATOMY OF THE 
ANIMAL KINGDOM. By Profs. C. Th. Yon Siebold and H. Stannios. 

Translated from the German, with Notes, Additions, &c. By Waldo I. Burnett, M. I)., 
Boston. One elegant octavo volume, cloth, $3.00. 

This is believed to be incomparably the best and most complete work on the subject extant j 
and its appearance in an English dress, with the additions of the American Translator, is every- 
where welcomed by men of science in this country. 

UNITED STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION; during the year* 
1833, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, under Charles Wilkes, U. S. N. Vol. xn. 

Mollusca and Shells. By Augustus A. Gould, M. D. Elegant quarto volume, cloth, 
$6.00. 

THE LANDING AT CAPE ANNE ; or, The Charter op the First Pekmav 
nent Colony on the Territory of the Massachusetts Company. Now discovered, 
and first published from the original manuscript, with an inquiry into its authority, 
and a History of the Colony, 1624 — 1628, Roger Conant, Governor. By J. Win- 
gate Thornton. 8vo, cloth, $1.50. 
I33T* " A rare contribution to the early history of New England." — Mercantile Journal. 

LAKE SUPERIOR ; Its Physical Character, Vegetation, and Animals. By L. 
Agassiz and others. One volume octavo, elegantly Illustrated, cloth, $3 50. 

THE HALLIG ; or, the Sheepfold in the "Waters. A Tale of Humble Life oa 
the Coast of Schleswig. Translated from the German of Biernatski, by Mrs. George P. 
Marsh. With a Biographical Sketch of the Author. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

As a revelation of an entire new phase in human society, this work strongly reminds the reader 
of Miss Bremer's tales, In originality and brilliancy of imagination, it is not inferior to those ; — 
its aim is far higher. 

THE CRUISE OP THE NORTH STAR; A Narrative of the Excursion 
made by Mr. Vanderbilt's Party in the Steam Yacht, in her Voyage to England, Russia, 
Denmark, France, Spain, Italy, Malta, Turkey, Madeira, &c. By Rev. John Overton 
Choules, D. D. With elegant Illustrations, &c. 12mo, cloth, gilt backs and sides, $1.50 ; 
cloth, gilt, $2.00 j Turkey, gilt, $3.00. 

PILGRIMAGE TO EGYPT; embracing a Diary of Explorations on the Nile, 
with Observations Illustrative of the Manners, Customs, and Institutions of the People, 
and of the present condition of the Antiquities and Ruins. By Hon. J. V. C. Smith, late 
Mayor of the City of Boston. With numerous elegant Engravings. 12mo, cloth, $1.25, 

:f»o:e ti o^l -works- 
complete poetical works of william cowper; 

with a Life and Critical Notices of his Writings. Elegant Illustrations. 16mo, cloth, 
$1.00. 

POETICAL "WORKS OP SIR WALTER SCOTT. Life and Illustra- 
tions. 16mo, cloth, $1.00. 

MILTON'S POETICAL WORKS. With a Life and elegant Illustrations. 
16mo, cloth, $1.00. 

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and plain. (27) 



GUYOT'S WORKS. VALUABLE MAPS, 

THE EARTH A3STD MAW ; Lectures on Comparative Physical Geography, 
in its relation to the History of Mankind. By Arnold Guyot. With Illustrations. 
12mo, cloth, $1.25. 

Prof. Louis Agassiz, of Harvard University, says : "It will not only render the study of 
geography more attractive, but actually show it in its true light." 

Hon. George S. Hillard says : " The work is marked by learning, ability, and taste. His 
bold and comprehensive generalizations rest upon a careful foundation of facts." 

" Those who have been accustomed to regard Geography as a merely descriptive branch of learn- 
ing, drier than the remainder biscuit after a voyage, will be delighted to find this hitherto unat- 
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clusive." — North American Review. 

" The grand idea of the work is happily expressed by the author, where he calls it the geographi- 
cal march of history. Sometimes we feel as if we were studying a treatise on the exact sciences ; at 
others, it strikes the ear like an epic poem. Now it reads like history, and now it sounds like 
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" The work is one of high merit, exhibiting a wide range of knowledge, great research, and a 
philosophical spirit of investigation."— • Silliman's Journal. 

COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL AND HISTORICAL GEOGR.A- 

PHY ; or, the Study of the Earth and Inhabitants. A Series of Graduated Courses, 
for the use of Schools. By Arnold Guyot. In preparation. 

GUYOT'S MURAL MAPS. A series of elegant Colored Maps, projected on a 
large scale for the Recitation Room, consisting of a Map of the World, North and South 
America, Geographical Elements, &c, exhibiting the Physical Phenomena of the Globe. 
By Professor Arnold Guyot, viz., 

Map of the World, mounted, $10.00. 

Map of North America, mounted, $9.00. 

Map of South America, mounted, $9.00. 

Map of Geographical Elements, mounted, $9.00. 

G^ These elegant and entirely original Mural Maps are projected on a large scale, so that when 
suspended in the recitation room they may be seen from any point, and the delineations with- 
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GEOLOGICAL MAP OP THE UNITED STATES AND BRIT- 
ISH PROVINCES OP NORTH AMERICA. With an Explanatory 
Text, Geological Sections, and Plates of the Fossils which characterize the Formations. 
By Jules Marcou. Two volumes. Octavo, cloth, $3.00. 

t$3T The Map is elegantly colored, and done up with linen cloth back, and folded in octavo form, 
with thick cloth covers. 

" The most complete Geological Map of the United States which has yet appeared. It is a work 
which all who take an interest in the geology of the United States would wish to possess ; and we 
recommend it as extremely valuable, not only in a geological point of view, but as representing 
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sketch of the geological constilations of North America, and is rich in facts on the subjects*. It is 
embellished with a number of beautiful plates of the fossils which characterize the formations, thus 
making, with the map, a very complete, clear, and distinct outline of the geology of our country." — 
Mining Magazine, N. Y. 

HALL'S GEOLOGICAL CHART ; Giving an Ideal Section of the Successive 
Geological Formations, with an Actual Section from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. 
By Prof. James Hall, of Albany. Mounted, $9.00. 

A KEY TO GEOLOGICAL CHART. By Prof. James Hall. 18mo,25cts. 

(31) 



VALUABLE TEXT-BOOKS. 

THE LECTUBES OF SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BART., laU 

Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, University of Edinburgh; embracing the Metaphysi- 
cal and Logical Courses ; with Notes, from Original Materials, and an Appendix, con- 
taining the Author's Latest Development of his New Logical Theory. Edited by Rev. 
Henry Longueyille Mansel, B. D., Prof, of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy in 
Magdalen College, Oxford, and John Yeitch, M. A., of Edinburgh. In two royal octavo 
volumes, viz., 

I. Metaphysical Lectures (now ready). Royal octavo, cloth. 

II. Logical Lectures (in preparation). 

©2f- G. & L., by a special arrangement with the family of the late Sir "William Hamilton, are 
the Authorized American Publishers of this distinguished author's matchless Lectures os Met- 
aphysics and Logic, and they are permitted to print the same from advance sheets furnished 
them by the English publishers. 

MENTAL PHILOSOPHY"; Including the Intellect, the Sensibilities, and the 
Will. By Joseph Haven, Prof, of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy, Amherst College. 
Koyal 12mo, cloth, embossed, $1.50. 

It is believed this work will be found pre-eminently distinguished. 

1. The Completeness with which it presents the whole subject. Text-books generally treat 
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of each topic. 5. The latest results of the science. 6. The chaste, yet attractive style. 7. The 
remarkable condensation of thought. 

Prof. Park, of Andover, says : "It is distinguished for its clearness of style, perspicuity of 
method, candor of spirit, acumen and comprehensiveness of thought." 

The work, though so recently published, has met with most remarkable success ; having beer 
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country, and bids fair to take the place of every other work on the subject now before the public. 

THESAURUS OF ENGLISH WORDS A1STD PHRASES, so classi- 
fied and arranged as to facilitate the expression of ideas, and assist in literary composi- 
tion. New and Improved Edition. By Peter Mark Roget, late Secretary of the Koyal 
Society, London, &c. Revised and edited, with a List of Foreign Words defined in Eng- 
lish, and other additions, by Barnas Sears, D. D., President of Brown University. A 
New American Edition, with Additions and Improvements. 12mo, cloth, $1.50. 

This edition is based on the London edition, recently issued. The first American Edition hav- 
ing been prepared by Dr. Sears for strictly educational purposes, those words and phrases properly 
termed " vulgar," incorporated in the original work, were omitted. These expurgated portions have, 
in the present edition, been restored, but by such an arrangement of the matter as not to inter- 
fere with the educational purposes of the American editor. Besides this, it contains important 
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perfect than the author's edition. The work has already become one of standard authority, both 
in this country and in Great Britain. 

PALEY'S NATURAL THEOLOGY. Illustrated by forty Plates, with 
Selections from the Notes of Dr. Paxton, and Additional Notes, Original and Selected, 
with a Vocabulary of Scientific Terms. Edited by John Ware. M. D. Improved edition, 
with elegant newly engraved plates. 12mo, cloth, embossed, $1.25. 

This work is very generally introduced into our best Schools and Colleges throughout the coun- 
try. An entirely new and beautiful set of Illustrations has recently been procured, which, with 
other improvements, render it the best and most complete work of the kind extant. 

(32) 



VALUABLE TEXT-BOOKS. 

PRINCIPLES OP ZOOLOGY; Touching the Structure, Development, Disv 
tribution, and Natural Arrangement, of the Races of Animals, living and extinct 
with numerous Illustrations. For the use of Schools and Colleges. Part I. Com- 
parative Physiology. By Louis Agassiz and Augustus A. Gould. Revised edi* 
tion, 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

" It is not a mere book, but a work — a real work in the form of a book. Zoology is an interesting 
science, and here is treated with a masterly hand. It is a work adapted to colleges and schools, and 
no young man should be without it." — Scientific American. 

" This work places us in possession of information half a century in advance of all our elementary 
works on this subject. . . No work of the same dimensions has ever appeared in the English lan- 
guage containing so much new and valuable information."— Prof. James Hall, Albany. 

" The best book of the kind in our language."— Christian Examiner. 

PRINCIPLES OP ZOOLOGY, PART II. Systematic Zoology. In 
preparation. 

THE ELEMENTS OP GEOLOGY; adapted to Schools and Colleges. With 
numerous Illustrations. By J. R. Loomis, President of Lewisburg University, Pa. 
12mo, cloth, 75 cts. 

" It is surpassed by no work before the American public." — M. B. Anderson, LL. D., President 
Rochester University. 

" This is just such a work as is needed for our schools. "We see no reason why it should not 
take its place as a text-book in all the schools in the land." — JSf. Y. Observer. 

" Admirably adapted for use as a text-book in common schools and academies."— Congregation- 
alist, Boston. 

ELEMENTS OP MORAL SCIENCE. By Francis Wayland, D. D., late 
President of Brown University. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. 

MORAL SCIENCE ABRIDGED, and adapted to the use of Schools and 
Academies, by the Author. Half morocco, 50 cts. 

The same, Cheap School Edition, boards, 25 cts. 

This work is used in the Boston Schools, and is exceedingly popular as a text-book wherever it 
has been adopted. 

ELEMENTS OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. By Francis Wayland, 
D. D. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. 

POLITICAL ECONOMY ABRIDGED, and adapted to the use of Schools 
and Academies, by the Author. Half morocco, 50 cts. 

" It deserves to be introduced into every private family, and to be studied by every man who 
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practically, by thousands, and still less understood theoretically. It is to be hoped this will form 
a class book, and be faithfully studied in our academies, and that it will find its way into every 
family library ; not there to be shut up unread, but to afford rich material for thought and discus- 
sion in the family circle." — Puritan Recorder. 

All the above Works by Dr. Wayland are used as text-books in most of the colleges and higher 
schools throughout the Union, and are highly approved. 



O" G. 4f L. keep, in addition to works published by themselves, an extensive assort- 
ment of works published by others, in all departments of trade, v)hich they supply 
at publishers' prices. They invite the attention of Booksellers, Travelling Agents, 
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HALF the price of the same. $y Orders from any part of the country promptly 
attended to with faithfulness and despatch. (33) 



WOEKS FOR BIBLE STUDENTS. 

KITTO'S POPULAR CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL LITERA- 
TUBE. Condensed from the larger work. By the Author, John Kitto, D. D. As- 
sisted by James Taylor, D. D., of Glasgow. With over five hundred Illustrations. One 
volume, octavo, 812 pp. Cloth, $3.00 ; sheep, $3.50 j cloth, gilt, $4.00 j half calf, $4.00. 

A Dictionary of the Bible. Serving, also, as a Commentary, embodying the products of 
the best and most recent researches in biblical literature in which the scholars of Europe and 
America have been engaged. The work, the result of immense labor and research, and enriched 
by the contributions of writers of distinguished eminence in the various departments of sacred liter- 
ature, has been, by universal consent, pronounced the best work of its class extant, and the one best 
Buited to the advanced knowledge of the present day in all the studies connected with theological 
science. It is not only intended for ministers and theological students, but it is also particularly 
adapted to parents, Sabbath-school teachers, and the great body of the religious public. 

THE HIS TOBY OP PALESTINE, from the Patriarchal Age to the Present 
Time ; with Chapters on the Geography and Natural History of the Country, the Cus- 
toms and Institutions of the Hebrews. By John Kitto, D. D. With upwards of two 
hundred Illustrations. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. 

IB©"* A work admirably adapted to the Family, the Sabbath, and the week-day School Library. 

ANALYTICAL CONCORDANCE TO THE HOLY SCRIP- 
TITHES ; or, the Bible presented under Distinct and Classified Heads or Topics. By 
John Eadie, D. D., LL. D., Author of " Biblical Cyclopaedia," "Ecclesiastical Cyclope- 
dia," " Dictionary of the Bible," etc. One volume, octavo, 840 pp. Cloth, $3.00 ; sheep, 
$3.50 j cloth, gilt, $4.00 ; half Turkey morocco, $4.00. 

The object of this Concordance is to present the Scriptures entire, under certain classified 
and exhaustive heads. It differs from an ordinary Concordance , in that its arrangement depends 
not on words, but on subjects, and the verses are printed in full. Its plan does not bring it at 
all into competition with such limited works as those of Gaston and Warden ; for they select doc~ 
trinal topics principally, and do not profess to comprehend as this the entire Bible. The work 
also contains a Synoptical Table of Contents of the whole work, presenting in brief a system of 
biblical antiquities and theology, with a very copious and accurate index. 

The value of this work to ministers and Sabbath- school teachers can hardly be over-estimated ; 
and it needs only to be examined, to secure the approval and patronage of every Bible student. 

CEUDEFS CONDENSED CONCORDANCE. A Complete Concord- 
ance to the Holy Scriptures. By Alexander Cruden. Revised and Re-edited by the 
Rev. David King, LL. D. Octavo, cloth backs, $1.25 $ sheep, $1.50. 

The condensation of the quotations of Scripture, arranged under the most obvious heads, while 
it diminishes the bulk of the work, greatly facilitates the finding of any required passage. 

" We have in this edition of Cruden the best made better. That is, the present is better adapted 
to the purposes of a Concordance, by the erasure of superfluous references, the omission of unne- 
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adapted by its price to the means of many who need and ought to possess such a work, than the 
former large and expensive edition." — Puritan Recorder. 

A COMMENTARY ON THE ORIGINAL TEXT OF THE ACTS 
OF THE A POSTLES. By Horatio B. Hackett, D. D., Prof, of Biblical Liter- 
ature and Interpretation, in the Newton Theol. Inst. QzrA new, revised, and enlarged 
edition. Royal octavo, cloth, $2.25. 

B3T" This most important and very popular work has been thoroughly revised ; large portions 
tntirely re-written, with the addition of more than one hundred pages of new matter; the result of 
the author's continued, laborious investigations and travels, since the publication of the first edition. 

(22) 



IMPORTANT NEW WORKS. 

CYCLOPJEDIA OF ANECDOTES OP LITERATURE AND 

THE EIJNTE ARTS. Containing a copious and choice Selection of Anecdotes 
of the various forms of Literature, of the Arts, of Architecture, Engravings, Music, 
Poetry, Painting, and Sculpture, and of the most celebrated Literary Characters and 
Artists of different Countries and Ages, &c. By Kazlitt Arvine, A. M., author of 
" Cyclopaedia of Moral and Religious Anecdotes." With numerous Illustrations. 725 pp. 
octavo. Cloth, $3.00 j sheep, $3.50 j cloth, gilt, $4.00 ; half calf, $4.00. 

This is unquestionably the choicest collection of Anecdotes ever published. It contains three 
thousand and forty Anecdotes : and such is the wonderful variety, that it will be found an almost 
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to artists, mechanics, and others, as a Dictionary for reference, in relation to facts on the num- 
berless subjects and characters introduced. There are also more than one hundred and fifty fine 
Illustrations. 

THE LIFE OP JOHN MILT OIsT, Narrated in Connection with the Political, 
Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of his Time. By David Masson, M.A., Professor 
of English Literature, University College, London. Vol. I., embracing the period from 
1608 to 1639. With Portraits, and specimens of his handwriting at different periods. 
Royal octavo, cloth, $0.00. 

This important work will embrace three royal octavo volumes. By special arrangement with 
Prof. Masson, the author, G. & L. are permitted to print from advance sheets furnished them, as 
the authorized American publishers of this magnificent and eagerly looked for work. Volumes two 
and three will follow in due time ; but, as each volume covers a definite period of time, and also 
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each other, or furnished in sets when the three volumes are completed. 

THE GREYSON LETTERS. Selections from the Correspondence of R. E. H. 
Greyson, Esq. Edited by Henry Rogers, author of " Eclipse of Faith." 12mo, cloth, 
$1.25. 

" Mr. Greyson and Mr. Rogers are one and the same person. The whole work is from his pen, 
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entitles Mr. Rogers to rank with Sydney Smith and Charles Lamb as a wit and humorist, and with 
Bishop Butler as a reasoner. Mr. Rogers' name will share with those of Butler and Pascal, in the 
gratitude and veneration of posterity." — London Quarterly. 

" A book not for one hour, but for all hours ; not for one mood, but for every mood ; to think 
over, to dream over, to laugh over." — Boston Journal. 

" The Letters are intellectual gems, radiant with beauty, happily intermingling the grave and 
the gay. — Christian Observer. 

ESSAYS I3ST BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM. By Peter Bayne, M. 
A., author of "The Christian Life, Social and Individual." Arranged in two Series, or 
Parts. 12mo, cloth, each, $1.25. 

These volumes have been prepared by the author exclusively for his American publishers, and 
are now published in uniform style. They include nineteen articles, viz. : 

First Series :— Thomas De Quincy. — Tennyson and his Teachers. — Mrs. Barrett Brown- 
ing. —Recent Aspects of British Art. —John Ruskin. — Hugh Miller. — The Modern Novel; 
Dickens, &c. — Ellis, Acton, and Currer Bell. 

Second Series :— Charles Kingsley. — S. T. Coleridge. — T. B. Macaulay. — Alison.— Wel- 
lington. — Napoleon. — Plato. — Characteristics of Christian Civilization. — The Modern University. 
- The Pulpit and the Press. — Testimony of the Rocks : a Defence. 

VISITS TO EUROPEAN CELEBRITIES. By the Ilev. William B. 
Sprague, D. D. 12mo, cloth, $1.00 ; cloth, gilt, $1.50. 

A series of graphic and life-like Personal Sketches of many of the most distinguished men and 
women of Europe, portrayed as the Author saw them in their own homes, and under the most 
advantageous circumstances. Besides these " pen and ink " sketches, the work contains the novel 
attraction of a facsimile of the signature of each of the persons introduced. (2 8) 



VALUABLE WORKS 



PUBLISHED BY 



GOULD AND LINCOLN, 

59 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON. 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE ; Social and Individual. By Peter Bayne, M. A. 
12ino, cloth, $1.25. 

There is but one voice respecting this extraordinary book, —men of all denominations, in all 
quarters, agree in pronouncing it one of the most admirable works of the age. 

MODERN ATHEISM; Under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, 
Development, and Natural Laws. By James Buchanan, D. D., L. L. D. 12mo, cloth, 
$1.25. 

" The work is one of the most readable and solid which we have ever perused." — Hugh Miller 
vi the Witness. 

NEW ENGLAND THEOCRACY. From the German of Uhden's History of 
the Congregationalists of New England, with an Introduction by Neander. By Mrs. 
II. C. Conant, author of " The English Bible," etc. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

A work of rare ability and interest, presenting the early religious and ecclesiastical history of 
New England, from authentic sources, with singular impartiality. The author evidently aimed 
throughout to do exact justice to the dominant party, and all their opponents of every name. The 
standpoint from which the whole subject is viewed is novel, and we have in this volume a new 
and most important contribution to Puritan History. 

THE MISSION OP THE COMFORTER ; with copious Notes. By Julius 
Charles Hare. With the Notes translated for the American Edition. 12mo, cloth, 
$1.25. 

THE BETTER LAND ; or, The Believer's Journey and Future Home. By the 
Rev. A. C. Thompson. 12mo, cloth, 85 cts. 

A most charming and instructive book for all now journeying to the " Better Land." 

THE EVENING- OP LIPE ; or, Light and Comfort amidst the Shadows of De~ 
dining Years. By Rev. Jeremiah Chaplin, D. D. A new Revised, and much en- 
larged edition. With an elegant Frontispiece on Steel. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

©3- A most charming and appropriate work for the aged, — large type and open page. An 
admirable " Gift" for the child to present the parent. 

THE STATE OP THE IMPENITENT DEAD. By Alvah Hovey, 
D. D., 'Prof, of Christian Theology in Newton Theol. Inst. 16mo, cloth, 50 cts. 

A WREATH AROUND THE CROSS; or, Scripture Truths Illustrated. 
By the Rev. A. Morton Brown, D. D. Recommendatory Preface, by John Angell 
James. With a beautiful Frontispiece. 16mo, cloth, 60 cts. 

" ' Christ, and Him crucified ' is presented in a new, striking, and inatter-of-fae! light. The stj le 
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from the heart, and reaches the heart.' "— K. Y. Observer. ( 2 ) 



WORKS FOR CHURCH MEMBERS. 

THE CHRISTIAN'S DAILY TREASURY; a Religious Exercise for every 
Day in the Year. By Rev. E. Temple. A new and improved edition. 12mo, cloth, 
$1.00. 

ESP* A work for every Christian. It is indeed a " Treasury " of good things. 

THE SCHOOL OP CHRIST ; or, Christianity Viewed in its Leading Aspects. 
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16mo, cloth, 50 cts. 

THE CHRISTIAN PASTOR ; His Work and the Needful Preparation. By 
Alvah Hovey, D. D., Prof, of Theology in the Newton Theol. Inst. 16mo, pp. 60 j 
flexible cloth, 25 cents ; paper covers, 12 cents. 

APOLLO S; or, Directions to Persons just commencing a Religious Life. 32mo, paper 
covers, cheap, for distribution, per hundred, $6.00. 

THE HARVEST AND THE REAPERS. Home Work for All, and how to 
do it. By Rev. Harvey Newcomb. 16mo, cloth, 63 cts. 

This work is dedicated to the converts of 1858. It shows what may be done, by showing what has 
been done. It shows how much there is now to be done at home. It shows how to do it. Every 
man interested in the work of saving men, every professing Christian, will find this work to be for 
him. 

THE CHURCH-MEMBER'S MANUAL of Ecclesiastical Principles, Doc- 
trines, and Discipline. By Rev. William Crowell, D. D. Introduction by H. J. Rip- 
ley, D. D. Second edition, revised and improved. 12mo, cloth, 75 cts. 

THE CHURCH-MEMBER'S HAND-BOOK; a Plain Guide to the Doc. 
trines and Practice of Baptist Churches. By the Rev. William Crowell, D. D. 
18mo, cloth, 38 cts. 

THE CHURCH-MEMBER'S GUIDE. By the Rev. John A. James. Edited 
by J. O. Chottles, D. D. New edition. With Introductory Essay, by Rev. Hubbard 
Winslow. Cloth, 33 cts. 

" The spontaneous effusion of our heart, on laying the book down, was : * May every church- 
member in our land possess this book, and be blessed with all the happiness which conformity to 
Us evangelical sentiments and directions is calculated to confer,' " — Christian Secretary. 

THE CHURCH IN EARNEST. By Rev. John A. James. 18mo, cloth, 40 cts. 

" Its arguments and appeals are well adapted to prompt to action, and the times demand such a 
hook. We trust it will be universally read."— N. Y. Observer. 

" Those who have the means should purchase a number of copies of this work, and lend them 
to church-members, and keep them in circulation UU they are worn out! " — Mothers' Assistant. 

CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. A Sequel to the Anxious Inquirer. By John 
Angell James. 18mo, cloth, 31 cts. 

OS"- One of the best and most useful works of this popular author. 

41 It ouprht to be sold by hundreds of thousands, until every church-member in the land has 
bought, read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested a copy."— Congreqationalist. 

" So eminently is it adapted to do good, that we feel no surprise that it should make one of the 
publishers' excellent puhlications. It exhibits the whole subject of growth in grace with great 
simplicity and clearness." — Puritan Recorder. (12) 



VALUABLE NEW WORKS. 

GOD REVEALED IN NATURE AND IN CHRIST ; including a 
Refutation of the Development Theory contained in the u Vestiges of the Natural History 
of Creation." By Rev. James B. AYalker, author of "The Philosophy of the Plan 
of Salvation." 12ino, cloth, $1.00. 

PHILOSOPHY OP THE PLAN OP SALVATION; a Book for the 
Times. By an American Citizen. With an Introductory Essay by Calvin E. Stowe, 
D. D. o=New improved and enlarged edition. 12rno, cloth, 75 cts. 

YAHVEH CHRIST; or, The Memorial Name. By Alexander MacWhorter. 
With an Introductory Letter by Nathaniel W. Taylor, D. D., Dwight Professor in Yale 
Theol. Sem. 16mo, cloth, 60 cts. 

SALVATION BY CHRIST. A Series of Discourses on some of the most Im- 
portant Doctrines of the Gospel. By Francis Wayland, D. D. 12mo, cloth, $1.00 ; 
cloth, gilt, $1.50. 

Contexts. — Theoretical Atheism. — Practical Atheism. — The Moral Character of Man. — 
The Fall of Man. — Justification by Works Impossible. — Preparation for the Advent. — Work of 
the Messiah. — Justification by Faith. — Conversion. — Imitators of God.— Grieving the Spirit.— 
A Day in the Life of Jesus. — The Benevolence of the Gospel. — The Fall of Peter. — Character 
of Balaam. — Veracity. — The Church of Christ. — The Unity of the Church. — Duty of Obedi- 
ence to the Civil Magistrate (three Sermons) . 

THE GREAT DAY" OF ATONEMENT ; or, Meditations and Prayers on 
the Last Twenty-four Hours of the Sufferings and Death of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ. Translated from the German of Charlotte Elizabeth Nebelin. Edited by 
Mrs. Colin Mackenzie. Elegantly printed and bound. 16mo, cloth, 75 cts. 

THE EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT IN ITS RELATION 
TO GOD AND THE UNIVERSE. By Rev. Thomas W. Jenkyn, D. D., 

late President of Coward College, London. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

This work was thoroughly revised by the author not long before his death, exclusively for the 
present publishers. It has long been a standard work, and without doubt presents the most com- 
plete discussion of the subject in the language. 

" We consider this volume as setting the long and fiercely agitated question as to the extent of 
the Atonement completely at rest. Posterity will thank the author till the latest ages for his illus- 
trious argument." — New York Evangelist. 

THE SUFFERING SAVIOUR ; or, Meditations on the Last Days of Christ, 
By Fred. W. Krummacher, D. D., author of "Elijah the Tishbite." 12mo, cloth, $1.25. 

" The narrative is given with thrilling vividness, and pathos, and beauty. Marking, as we pro> 
ceeded, several passages for quotation, we found them in the end so numerous, that we must refer 
the reader to the work itself." — News of the Churches {Scottish). 

THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. By Thomas a Kempis. With an Intro, 
ductory Essay, by Thomas Chalmers, D. D. Edited by Howard Malcom, D. D. A 
new edition, with a Life of Thomas a Kempis, by Dr. C. Ullmann, author of "Re- 
formers before the Reformation." 12mo, cloth, 85 cts. 

This may safely be pronounced the best Protestant edition extant of this ancient and celebrated 
work. It is reprinted from Payne's edition, collated with an ancient Latin copy. The peculiar 
feature of this new edition is the improved page, the elegant, large, clear type, and the New Life 
of a Kempis, by Dr. Ullmann. (13) 



VALUABLE WORKS. 

FOOTSTEPS OF OUE FOREFATHERS ; What they suffered and what 
they sought. Describing Localities, and Portraying Personages and Events, conspicu- 
ous in the Struggles for Religious Liberty. By James G. Miall. Containing thirty-six 
Illustrations. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

MEMORIALS OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY ; Presenting, in a graphic, 
compact, and popular form, Memorable Events of Early Ecclesiastical History, &c. By 
Rev. J. G. Miall, author of " Footsteps of our Forefathers." With numerous Illustra- 
tions. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. • 

i@3f* The above, by Miall, are both exceedingly interesting and instructive works. 

REPUBLICAN CHRISTIANITY; or, True Liberty, as exhibited in the 
Life, Precepts, and early Disciples of the Great Redeemer. By the Rev. E. L. Magoon, 
D. D., author of "Proverbs for the People," &c. Second edition. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. 

" The author has at his command a rich store of learning, from which he skilfully draws abun- 
dant evidence for the support of the positions he assumes." — Puritan Recorder. 



THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST. By Ernest Sartorius, D.D., 
Konigsberg, Prussia. Translated by Rev. Oakman S. Stearns, A. M. 18mo, cloth, 42 cts. 

" A work of much ability, and presenting the argument in a style that will be new to most of 
American readers. It will deservedly attract attention." — New York Observer. 

CHRISTIANITY DEMONSTRATED; in four distinct and independent 
series of proofs j with an Explanation of the Types and Prophecies concerning the 
Messiah. By Rev. Harvey Newcomb. 12mo, cloth, 75 cts. 

THE SAINT'S EVERLASTING REST. By Richard Baxter 16mo, 
cloth, 50 cts. 

THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, and their Relations to Christianity. 
By Frederick Denison Maurice, A. M., Professor of Divinity in King's College, London. 
16mo, cloth, 60 cts. 

THE CHRISTIAN "WORLD UNMASKED. By John Berridge, A M., 
Yicar of Everton, Bedfordshire. With a Life of the Author, by Rev. Thomas Guthrie, 
D. D., Minister of Free St. John's, Edinburgh. 16mo, cloth, 50 cts. 

" The book," says Dr. Guthrie, in his Introduction, " which we introduce anew to the public, 
has survived the test of years, and still stands towering above things of inferior growth, like a 
cedar of Lebanon. Its subject is all-important ; in doctrine it is sound to the core ; it glows with 
fervent piety ; it exhibits a most skilful and unsparing dissection of the dead professor ; while its 
style is so remarkable that he who could preach as Berridge has written would hold any congrega- 
tion by the ears." 

THE IMITATION OP CHRIST. By Thomas a Kempis. Introductory 
Essay, by T. Chalmers, D. D. Edited by the Rev. Howard Malcom, D. D. Cheap 
edition. 18mo, cloth, 38 cts. 

GTJIDO AND JULIUS. TnE Doctrine of Sin and the Propitiator ; or, the 
True Consecration of the Doubter. Exhibited in the Correspondence of two Friends. By 
Frederick Augustus O. Tholuck, D. D. Translated from the German, by Jonathan 
Edwards Ryland. With an introduction by John Pve Smith, D. D. 16mo, cloth, 
60 cts. (14) 



DR. JOHN HARMS' WORKS. 

THE GREAT TEACHER ; or, Characteristics of our Lord's Ministry. By John 
Harris, D. D. With an Introductory Essay by II. Humphrey, 1). D. Sixteenth thou- 
sand. 12nio, cloth, 85 cents. 
" Dr. Harris is one of the best writers of the age ; and this volume will not in the least detract 

from his well-merited reputation." — American Pulpit. 

THE GREAT COMMISSION ; or, the Christian Church constituted and 
charged to convey the Gospel to the World. A Prize Essay. With an Introductory 
Essay by W. R. Williams, D. D. Eighth thousand. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

" This volume will afford the reader an intellectual and spiritual banquet of the highest order." — 
Philadelphia Ch. Observer. 

THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. Contributions to Theological Science. By 
John IIaruis, 1). D. New and revised edition. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

MAW PRIMEVAL ; or, the Constitution and Primitive Condition of the Human 
Being. With a finely engraved Portrait of the Author. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. 

PATRIARCHY ; or, the Family, its Constitution and Probation. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. 
This is the last of Dr. Harris' series entitled " Contributions to Theological Science." 

SERMONS, CHARGES, ADDRESSES, &c, delivered by Dr. Harris in 
various parts of the country, during the height of his reputation as a preacher. Two ele- 
gant volumes, octavo, cloth, each, $1.00. 
The immense sale of all this author's Works attests their intrinsic worth and great popularity. 

r>IR,_ WILLIAMS' -WOPtlKS- 

LECTURES ON" THE LORD'S PRAYER. By William R. Williams, 
D. D. Third edition. 12mo, cloth, 85 cts. 

" We are constantly reminded, in reading his eloquent pages, of the old English writers, whose 
vigorous thought, and gorgeous imagery, and varied learning, have mode their writings an inex- 
haustible mine for the scholars of the present day." — Ch. Observer. 

RELIGIOUS PROGRESS; Discourses on the Development of the Christian 
Character. By William R. Williams, D. D. Third edition. 12mo, cloth, 85 cts. 

" His power of apt and forcible illustration is without a parallel among modern writers. The mute 
pages spring into life beneath the magic of his radiant imagination. But this is never at the 
expense of solidity of thought, or strength of argument. It is seldom, indeed, that a mind of so 
much poetical invention yields such a willing homage to the logical element." — Haider's Monthly 
Miscellany. 

MISCELLANIES. By William R. Williams, D. D. New and improved edition. 
Price Reduced. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. 
Xgjf " Dr. Williams is a profound scholar and a brilliant writer." — JV. Y. Evangelist. 

THE PREACHER AND THE KING; or, Bourdaloue in the Court of Louis 
XIV. 5 being an Account of the Pulpit Eloquence of that distinguished, era. Translated 
from the French of L. F. Bungener, Paris. Introduction by the Rev. George Potts, 
D. D. A new, improved edition, with a fine Likeness and a Biographical Sketch of 
the Author. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. 

THE PRIEST AND THE HUGUENOT; or, Persecution in the Age of 
Louis XV Translated from the French of L. F. Bungener. Two vols. 12mo, cloth, $2.25. 

©5f This is not only a work of thrilling interest, — no fiction could exceed it, — but, as a Protes- 
tant work, it is a masterly production. (15) 



BIOGRAPHIES AND WORKS ON MISSIONS. 

THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE ; a Collection of the most important 
Discourses in the language, on Christian Missions, by distinguished American Authors. 
Edited by Baron Stow, D. D. Second Thousand. 12mo, cloth, 85 cts. 

44 You here see the high talent of the American church. The discourses by Dr. Beecher, Dr. 
Wayland, and the Rev. Dr. Stone, are among the very highest exhibitions of logical correctness, 
and burning, popular fervor." — New Englander. 

A HISTORY OF AMERICAN BAPTIST MISSIONS, in Asia, 
Africa, Europe, and North America, from their earliest commencement to the present 
time. Prepared under the direction of the American Baptist Missionary Union. By 
William Gammell, Professor in Brown University. With seven Maps. 12mo, cloth, 
at the low price of 75 cts. 

This work -was prepared at the request of the Executive Committee of the Missionary Union ; 
and the Committee appointed by the Union to examine the manuscript, consisting of Doctors 
Cone, Sharp, and Chase, say : " It exhibits gratifying evidence of research, fidelity, and skill. It 
sets before the reader, in a lucid manner, facts that should never be forgotten. Some of them, in 
power to awaken attention and touch the heart, could scarcely be surpassed by fiction." 

Rev. E. Kincaid says : " As I have labored more or less at all the stations in Burmah, I could 
but admire the singular accuracy with which all the leading facts of these missions are detailed in 
Prof. Gammell's History of American Baptist Missions. I have not found a single error of any 
importance." 

Rev. J. Wade says : " I can most cordially recommend it to the public as being a very truthful 
and well-written work." 

DR. GRANT AND THE MOUNTAIN NESTORIANS. By Key. 

Thomas Laurie, his surviving associate in that Mission. With a Likeness, Map of the 
Country, and numerous Illustrations. Third edition. Revised and improved. 12mo, 
cloth, $1.25. 
©3p- A most valuable Memoir of a remarkable man. 

THE KAREN APOSTLE; or, Memoir of Ko-Thah-Byu, the first Karen Con- 
vert. With notices concerning his Nation. By Rev. Francis Mason, D. D., Missionary. 
Edited by Prof. H. J. Ripley. 18mo, cloth, 25 cts. 
" This is a work of thrilling interest, containing the history of a remarkable man, and giving, 

also, much information respecting the Karens, a people until recently but little known." 

MEMOIR OP ANN H. JUDSON, late Missionary to Burmah. By Rev. J. 
D. Knowles. A new edition. Fifty-seventh thousand. 18mo, cloth, 58 cts. 

Fine Edition, with plates, 16mo, cloth, gilt, 85 cts. 

MEMOIR OF GEORGE DANA ROARDMAN, late Missionary to Bur- 
mah, containing much intelligence relative to the Burman Mission. By Rev. A. King. 
With an Introductory Essay, by W. R. Williams, D. D. New edition, with beautiful 
frontispiece. 12mo, cloth, 75 cts. 

44 One of the brightest luminaries of Burmah is extinguished." — Rev. Dr. Judson. 
EST* The introduction alone is worth the price of the book, says a distinguished reviewer. 

MEMOIR OP HENRIETTA SHUCK, first female Missionary to China. 
By Rev. J. B. Jeter, D. D. With a likeness. Fifth thousand. 12mo, cloth, 50 cts. 

* 4 We have seldom taken into our hands a more beautiful book than this. It will be extensively 
read, and eminently useful." — Family Visitor. 

MEMOIR OP REV. WILLIAM G. CROCKER, late Missionary to West 
Africa, among the Bassas. Including a History of the Mission. By R. B. Medbery. 
With a likeness. 18rao, cloth, 63 cts. 

44 Tliie work is commended to the attention of every lover of the liberties of man."— Watchman 
and Reflector. (16; 



VALUABLE WORKS. 

THE LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT EXAMINED. Bj 
Henry Loxgueville Mansel, B. D.,Prof. of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy. Mag. 
dalen College, Oxford, Editor of Sir William Hamilton's Lectures, etc. etc. With the 
Copious Notes of the volume translated for the American Edition. 12mo, cloth, $125. 

iBzjf This is a masterly production, and may be safely said to be one of the most important works 
of the day. 

FIRST THINGS; or, The Development of Church Life. By Baron Stow, D. D. 
lGruo, cloth, 75 cts. 

HEAVEN. By James William Kimball. With an elegant vignette title-page. 
12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

" The book is full of beautiful ideas, consoling hopes, and brilliant representations of human 
destiny, all presented in a chaste, pleasing and very readable style.'' — N. Y. Chronicle. 

THE PROGRESS OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES IN THE LAST 
HUNDRED YEARS. By T. F. Curtis, Professor of Theology in the Lewisburg 
University, Pa., and author of " Communion," &c. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. 

Eminently worthy of the attention, not only of Baptists, but of all other denominations. In his 
preface the author declares that his aim has been to draw a wide distinction between parties and 
opinions. Hence the object of this volume is not to exhibit or defend the Baptists, but their prin-* 
ciples. It is confidently pronounced the best exhibition of Baptist views and principles extant. 

THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT COLLEGIATE SYSTEM in the 
United States. By Francis Wayland, D. D. 16mo, cloth, 50 cents. 

SACRED RHETORIC ; or, Composition and Delivery of Sermons. By H. J. 
Ripley, D. D., Prof, in Newton Thcol. Inst. To which is added, Dr. Ware's Hints 
on Extemporaneous Preaching. Second thousand. 12mo, cloth, 75 cts. 

THE PULPIT OP THE REVOLUTION; or, The Political Sermons of the 
Era of 1776. With an Introduction, Biographical Sketches of the Preachers and Histori- 
cal Notes, etc. By John Wixgate Thornton, author of u The Landing at Cape Anne," 
etc. 12mo, cloth. In press. 

THE EIGHTEEN CHRISTIAN CENTURIES. By the Rev. James 
White, author of " Landmarks of the History of England." 12mo, cloth. In press. 

THE PLURALITY OP WORLDS. A New Edition. With a Supplement- 
ary Dialogue, in which the author's Reviewers are reviewed. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

This masterly production, which has excited so much interest in this country and in Europe, 
will now have an increased attraction in the addition of the Supplement, in which the author's 
reviewers are triumphantly reviewed. 

THE CAMEL ; His Organization, Habits, and Uses, considered with reference to his 
introduction into the United States. By George P. Marsh, late U. S. Minister at Con- 
stantinople. 12mo, cloth, 63 cts. 

This book treats of a subject of great interest, especially at the present time. It furnishes a more 
complete and reliable account of the Camel than any other in the language ; indeed, it is believed 
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vation, on the part of the author, and it has been prepared with special reference to the experiment 
of domesticating the Camel in this country, now going on under the auspices of the United States 
government. It is written in a style worthy of the distinguished author's reputation for great learn- 
ing and fine scholarship. (36) 



VALUABLE BIOGRAPHIES. 

EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE 
OF THE LATE AMOS LAWRENCE. With a brief account of some 
Incidents in his Life. Edited by his son, Wm. R. Lawrence, M. D. With elegant Por- 
traits of Amos and Abbott Lawrence, an Engraving of their Birthplace, an Autograph 
page of Handwriting, and a copious Index. One large octavo volume, cloth, $1.50 ; royal 
12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

A MEMOIR OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ISAAC BACKUS. 

By Alvah Hovby, Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Newton Theological Institution. 
12mo, cloth, $1.25. 

This work gives an account of a remarkable man, and of a remarkable movemert in the middle 
of the last century, resulting in the formation of what were called the " Separate " Churches. It 
supplies an important deficiency in the history of New England affairs. For every Baptist, espe- 
cially, it is a necessary book. 

LIFE OF JAMES MONTGOMERY. By Mrs. H. C. Knight, author of 
" Lady Huntington and her Friends," &c. Likeness and elegant Illustrated Title-Page 
on steel. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. 

This is an original biography, prepared from the abundant but ill-digested materials contained 
in the seven octavo volumes of the London edition. The Christian public in America will wel- 
come such a memoir of a poet whose hymns and sacred melodies have been the delight of every 
household. 

MEMOIR OF ROGER "WILLIAMS, Founder of the State of Rhode Island. 
By Prof. William Gammell, A. M. 16mo, cloth, 75 cts. 

PHILIP DODDRIDGE. His Life and Labors. By John Stoughton, D. D. With 
an Introductory Chapter, by Rev. James G. Miall, Author of " Footsteps of our Fore- 
fathers," &c. With beautiful Illustrated Title-page and Frontispiece. 16mo, cloth, 60 
cents. 

THE LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN FOSTER. 

Edited by J. E. Ryland, with notices of Mr. Foster, as a Preacher and a Companion. 
By John Sheppard. A new edition, two volumes in one, 700 pages. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. 

" In simplicity of language, in majesty of conception, his writings are unmatched." — North 
British Review. 

THE LIFE OF GODFREY WILLIAM VON LEIBNITZ. By John 
M. Mackie, Esq. On the basis of the German work of Dr. G. E. Guhrauer. 16mo, cloth, 
75 cts 

" It merits the special notice of all who are interested in the business of education, and deserves 
a place by the side of Brewster's Life of Newton, in all the libraries of our schools, academies, and 
literary institutions." — Watchman and Reflector. 

MEMORIES OF A GRANDMOTHER. By a Lady of Massachusetts. 
16mo, cloth, 50 cts. 

m- " My path lies in a valley, which I have sought to adorn with flowers. Shadows from the 
hills cover it ; but I make my own sunshine." — Author's Preface. 

THE TEACHER'S LAST LESSON. A Memoir of Martha Whiting, late 
of the Charlestown Female Seminary, with Reminiscences and Suggestive Reflections. 
By Catharine N. Badger, an Associate Teacher. With a Portrait, and an Engraving 
•f the Seminary. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

The subject of this Memoir was, for a quarter of a century, at the head of one of the most cele- 
brated female seminaries in the country. During that period she educated more than three thou- 
sand young ladies. She was a kindred spirit to Mary Lyon. (17) 



VALUABLE WORKS. 



SERVICE, THE END OP LIVING. An Address delivered before the 
Boston Young Men's Christian Association, at their Anniversary, on Monday evening, 
May 24, 1S5S. By Andrew L. Stone, Pastor of Park-street Church, Boston. lomo, 
flexible cloth covers, 20 cts.j paper covers, 12^ cts. 

C€r" An admirable work for circulation, especially among young men. 

PERMANENT REALITIES OF RELIGION, AND THE PRES- 
ENT RELIGIOUS INTEREST. A Sermon preached in the Bedford-street 
Church, Boston, on the evening of Fast Day, April 15, 1858. By F. D. Huntington, D. D., 
Preacher to the University, Cambridge. Octavo pamphlet, 12£ cts. 

CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP AND HONEST LEGISLATION. 

A Sermon delivered before the Legislature of Massachusetts, at the Annual Election, 
January 6, 1S58, by F. D. Huntington, D. D., Preacher to the University, Cambridge. 
Octavo pamphlet, 12£ cts. 

TRUTHS FOR THE TIMES. By Nehemiah Adams, D. D., Pastor of Essex- 
street Church, Boston. 12mo, paper covers. 

This very useful and popular Series of publications comprises the following : 
I. The Reasonableness of Future Endless Punishment, 10 cts. 
II. Instantaneous Conversion and its Connection with Piety, 10 cts. 

III. Justification and its Consequences, 10 cts. 

IV. God is Love. A Supplement to the Author's Discourse on the " Reasonableness of 
Future Endless Punishment," with a brief notice of Rev. T. Starr King's Two Dis- 
courses in reply to the same, 20 cts. 

V. Our Bible. 20 cts. 

EXCLUSIVENESS OP THE BAPTISTS; a Review of Dr. Albert Barnes' 
Pamphlet on " Exclusivism." By H.J. Ripley, Prof. Newton Theol. Inst. 16mo, 
printed cover, 10 cts. 

A kind yet manly and most triumphant refutation of Dr. Barnes' serious charges of " Exclusiv- 
ism," etc., against the Baptists. 

BEMAEKS ON SOCIAL PRAYER-MEETINGS. By the Right Rev. 
Alexander Yiets Griswold, D. D., late Bishop of the Eastern Diocese. "He, being 
dead, yet speaketh. :) — Heb. xi. 4. Originally published in the Episcopal Register, for 
the years 1827-8. With an introductory statement by Rev. George D. Wildes, A. M. 
12mo, cloth bound, 37£ cts. ; cloth, flexible covers, 31 cts. ; paper covers, 20 els. 

This admirable defence of social prayer-meetings, by one whose memory is still fragrant in the 
hearts of multitudes, is highly commended by Bishop Eastburn, and the Rev. John S. Stone, D. D. 

THE INCARNATION ; By Rollin H. Neale, D. D. 32mo, gilt, 31 cts. 

ANTIOCH; or, Increase of Moral Power in the Church of Christ. By P. Church, 
D. D. With an Essay by Baron Stow, D. D. 18mo, cloth, 50 cts. 

ONESIMTTS ; or, the Apostolic Directions to Christian Masters in reference to their 
Slaves considered. By Evangelicus. 18mo, cloth, 25 cts. 

CHRISTIANITY AND SLAVERY. A Review of Drs. Fuller and Way- 
land on Slavery. By William Hague, D. D. 18mo, paper cover, 12£ cts. 

CHRISTIANITY AND SLAVERY. Strictures on the Rev. Dr. Hague's 
Review of Drs. Fuller and Wayland on Domestic. Slavery. By Rev. Thomas Meredith, 
Raleigh, N. C. 18mo, paper, 12| cts. (1 8) 



WORKS FOR BIBLE STUDENTS. 

NOTES ON THE GOSPELS. Designed for Teachers in Sabbath Schools and 
Bible Classes, and as an Aid to Family Instruction. By Henry J. Ripley, Prof, in New- 
ton Theol. Inst. With Map of Canaan. Cloth, embossed, $1.25. 

NOTES ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. With a beautiful Map, 
illustrating the Travels of the Apostle Paul, with a track of his Voyage from Cesarea 
to Rome. By Prof. Henry J. Ripley, D. D. 12mo, cloth, embossed, 75 cts. 

NOTES ON THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE ROMANS. 

Designed for Teachers in Sabbath Schools and Bible Classes, and as an aid to Family 
Instruction. By Henry J. Ripley. 12mo, cloth, embossed, 67 cts. 

The above works by Prof. Ripley should be in the hands of every student of the Bible, especially 
every Sabbath-school and Bible-class teacher. They are prepared with especial reference to this 
class of persons, and contain a mass of just the kind of information wanted. 

MALCOM'S NEW BIBLE DICTIONARY* of the most important Names, 
Objects, and Terms, found in the Holy Scriptures ; intended principally for Sabbath- 
School Teachers and Bible Classes. By Howard Malcom, D. D., late President of 
Lewisburg College, Pa. 16mo, cloth, embossed, 60 cts. 

e3f- The former Dictionary, of which more than one hundred thousand copies were sold, is made 
the basis of the present work ; yet so revised, enlarged, and improved, by the addition of new 
material, a greatly increased number of articles, new illustrations, etc., as to render it essentially a 
New Dictionary. 

THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY, as exhibited in the writings of 
its apologists, down to Augustine. By W. J. Bolton, of Gonville and Caius College, Cam- 
bridge 12mo, cloth, 80 cts. 

HARMONY QUESTIONS ON THE FOUR GOSPELS, for the use of 

Sabbath Schools. By Rev. S. B. Swaim, D. D. Vol. I. 18mo, cloth backs, 12£ cts. 

The plan differs from all others in this, that it is based upon a harmony of the gospels. Instead 
of taking one of the gospels, — that of Matthew, for instance, — and going through with it, the author 
takes from all of the gospels those parts relating to the same event, and brings them together in 
the same lesson. 

SABBATH-SCHOOL CLASS BOOK; comprising copious Exercises on the 
Sacred Scriptures. By E. Lincoln. Revised and Improved by Rev. Joseph Banvard, 
author of " Topical Question Book," etc. 18mo, 12^ cts. 

United testimony of Dr. Malcom, author of " Bible Dictionary," Dr. Stow, "Doctrinal Question 
Book," Dr. Hague, " Guides to Conversations on New Testament" : 

" It gives us pleasure to express our satisfaction with its design and execution. We think the 
work is well adapted to the end designed, having avoided, in a great degree, the evils of extreme 
redundance or conciseness." 

LINCOLN'S SCRIPTURE QUESTIONS ; with answers, giving, in the 
language of Scripture, interesting portions of the History, Doctrines, and Duties, exhibited 
in the Bible. 81 cts. per copy 5 $1.00 per dozen. 

KO*" Where Bibles cannot be furnished to each scholar, this work will be found an admirable 
substitute, as the text is furnished in connection with the questions. 



THE SABBATH-SCHOOL HARMONY; containing appropriate Hymns 
and Music for Sabbath Schools, Juvenile Singing Schools, and Family Devotion. By 
Nathaniel D. Gould. 12} cts. (23) 



VALUABLE WORKS. 

MOTHERS OF THE WISE AND GOOD. By Jabez Burns, D. D. 
16mo, cloth, 75 cts. ; cloth, gilt, $1.25. 

GST" A sketch of the mothers of many of the most eminent men of the world, and showing how 
much they were indebted to maternal influence for their greatness and excellence of character. 

MY MOTHER; or, Recollections of Maternal Influence. By a New England Cler- 
gyman. With a beautiful Frontispiece. 12mo, cloth, 75 cts. ; cloth, gilt, $1.25. 

A writer of wide celebrity says of the book : "It is one of those rare pictures painted from life 
with the exquisite skill of one of the Old Masters, which so seldom present themselves to the 
amateur." 

THE EXCELLENT "WOMAN, as Described in the Book of Proverbs With 
an Introduction by Rev. W. B. Sprague, D. D. Containing twenty-four splendid Illus- 
trations. Third thousand. 12mo, cloth, $1.00 ; cloth, gilt, $1.75 j extra Turkey, $2.50. 

j@3** This elegant volume is an appropriate and valuable " Gift Book " for the husband to present 
the wife, or the child the mother. 

THE SIGNET RING, and Its Heavenly Motto. From the German. Illus- 
trated. 16mo, cloth, gilt, 31 cts. 

EST- Seldom within so small a compass has such weighty teaching been presented with such 
exquisite and charming skill. 

THE MARRIAGE RING ; or, How to Make Home Happy. From the writings 
of John Angell James. Beautifully Illustrated edition. 16mo, cloth, gilt, 75 cts. 

"WOKKS B'Y DR. TWEEDIE. 

GLAD TIDINGS ; or, the Gospel of Peace. A Series of Daily Meditations for 
•Christian Disciples. By Rev. W. K. Tweedie, D. D. With an elegant illustrated title- 
page. 16mo, cloth, 63 cts.-, cloth, gilt, $1.00. 

A LAMP TO THE PATH ; or, the Bible in the Heart, the Home, and the 
Market-place. With an elegant illustrated title-page. 16mo, cloth, 63 cts.-, clo. gilt, $1.00. 

SEED-TIME AND HARVEST ; or, Sow Well and Reap Well. A Book for 
the Young. With an elegant illustrated title-page. 16mo, cloth, 63 cts. ; cloth, gilt, $1.00. 

ts&^ The above interesting works, by Dr. Tweedie, are of uniform size and style, and well 
adapted for " gift books." 



GATHERED LILIES ; or, Little Children in Heaven. By Rev. A. C. Thompson, 
Author of " The Better Land." 18mo, flexible cloth, 25 cts. ; flexible cloth, gilt, 31 cts. j 
and cloth, gilt, 42 cts. 

" My beloved has gone down into his garden to gather lilies." — Song of Solomon. 
" In almost every household such a little volume as this will meet a tender welcome." — N. T. 
Evangelist. 

OUR LITTLE ONES IN HEAVEN. Edited by the Author of " The Aim- 
well Stories," &c. 18mo, cloth, 50 cts. ; cloth, gilt, 75 cts. 

This little volume contains a choice collection of pieces, in verse and prose, on the death and 
future happiness of young children. 

SAFE HOME ; or, the Last Days and Happy Death of Fannie Kenyon. With an 
Introduction by Prof. J. L. Lincoln, of Brown University. 18mo, flexible cloth cover, 
25 cts. •, gilt, 31 cts. 

This is a delightful narrative of a remarkable little girl, and is recommended to the attention, 
particularly, of Sabbath Schools. (24) 



GOULD AND LINCOLN, 

59 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, 

Would call particular attention to the following valuable worKS described 
in their Catalogue of Publications, viz. : 

Hugh. Miller's "Works. 

Bayne'S Works. "Walker's Works. MialPs Works. Bungener's Work. 

Annnal of Scientific Discovery. Knight's Knowledge is Power. 

Krummacher's Suffering Saviour, 

Banvard's American Histories. The Aimwell Stories. 

sfewcOrab's Works. Tweedie's Works. Chambers's Works. Harris' Works. 

Kitto's Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature. 

ISrs. Knight's Life of Montgomery. Kitto's History of Palestin 

Wheewell's Work. Wayland's Works. Agassiz's Works. 



rfjeBtimony of Bocfcj, 
l \ Ann. of Scient. Di s ' C07 
h Earth and Man 
^Principles of z 0ol 
I Comparative Anato ' 
^ Mollusca and Shells 
Vrhesaur. of E Dg . J^ 
\ Knowledge is Power, ' 
\ Cyclop, of Eng. Literate 
k \ Cyclop, of Bible Lit., 
\ Concord, of th e Bible, 
Wnalyt. Cone, of Bible, 

....A Moral Science, 

\l\%The Great Tether. 



Hugh Miller. 
David A. WelJ a . 
Arnold Gujot' 
Louis Agaas,-^ 

Rob ert Chambers. 

tto. - Cruden. 

■Eadie. - Williams. 

Francis Wayland. 

John Harris. 

Peter Bayne. 



ss,-/z'j>ffsn*iS£ - 



William's Works. G-uyot's Works. 

Qiompson'fl Better Land. Kimball's Heaven. Valuable Works on Mission*. 

Haven's Mental Philosophy. Buchanan's Modern Atheism. 

Cruden's Condensed Concordance. Eadie's Analytical Concordance, 

The Psalmist : a Collection of Hymns. 

Valuable School Books. Works for Sabbath Schools. 

Memoir of Amos Lawrence. 

Poetical Works of Milton, Cowper, Scott. Elegant Miniature Voluir.<»p. 

Arvine's Cyclopsedia of Anecdotes. 

Kipley's Notes on Gospels, Acts, and Bomans. 

Sprague's European Celebrities. Marsh's Camel and the Hallig. 

Roget's Thesaurus of English Words. 

Hackett's Notes on Acts. M'Whorter's Yahveh Christ. 

*»iebold and Stannius's Comparative Anatomy. Marco's Geological Map, IT. t&. 

Beligious and Miscellaneous Works. 

Works in the various Department* c*r Literature, Science and Art. 



